Why it works: Shrimp and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,931 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Shrimp Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the shrimps
Rinse the shrimps in a sieve with cold water.
Shell the shrimps and pick them clean.
Make the sauce
Stew the heads and shells of the shrimps in ½ pint of water, covered, for 15 minutes.
Strain the liquid and use it to make melted butter.
Add the cleaned shrimps to the melted butter and let them gently boil for a moment.
Pour the sauce into a warm sauce-tureen.
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.
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Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,931 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Shrimps
- Provide the main flavour and the body of the sauce once added to the butter.
- Butter
- Forms the rich base of the melted butter sauce and carries the shrimp flavour.
The step that matters
Stewing the heads and shells. Simmering the shells gently, covered, draws flavour into the water. Boiling hard or uncovered can concentrate or reduce the liquid unevenly, so the stock tastes weaker or harsher.
“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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