Name: Shrimp Saucf
Ingredients: 1 pint shrimps or 1 tin; 1 tablespoon butter or margarine; breadcrumbs; salt; pepper; 1 cup white wine; juice of 1 lemon

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Shrimp Saucf

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Remove the head and skin from the sole and cook it with the shrimp shells in the wine.
Strain and reserve the liquid.
Melt the butter, add flour, and mix in the fish and reserved wine liquid.
If the sauce is too thick, add a little more wine.
Stir in the lemon juice and shrimp.
Pour the mixture over the fish, sprinkle breadcrumbs on top, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,832 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,931 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,433 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, butter, pepper, white wine):

Lemonthe original
Mangofits about as well
Plumfits less well
Grapefits less well

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