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Shrimp Sauce

A sauce made with white sauce, shrimps, anchovy essence, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Shrimp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Simmer shrimp shells in milk and water to make fish stock for the white sauce.

  2. Add the picked shrimps, anchovy essence, lemon juice, and cayenne to the hot white sauce.

  3. Cover the saucepan and let it stand for a few minutes without boiling.

Serve

  1. Serve warm.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Shrimp + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Anchovy + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sauce + shrimptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White sauce
Forms the creamy base that carries the flavours and gives the sauce its body.
Picked shrimps
Provide the main seafood flavour and tender texture in the sauce.
Anchovy essence
Adds a savoury, salty depth that enriches the shrimp flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Cover and let stand without boiling. Boiling a cream-based sauce can cause it to separate or turn grainy and tough the shrimp. Gentle standing with the lid on lets the shrimp warm through and the flavours blend while keeping the sauce smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, shrimp, anchovy, pepper):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, shrimp, anchovy, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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