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Croute Aux Crevettes, or Shrimp-toast

A savory toast topped with a shrimp and butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Croute Aux Crevettes, or Shrimp-toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the shrimp liquor

  1. Shell the shrimp and bruise the heads.

  2. Boil the heads in 1½ pints of water for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve.

Make the shrimp sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour, ground mace, cayenne, and nutmeg until the flour begins to brown.

  3. Gradually add the strained shrimp liquor and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the shrimp and heat until they are hot throughout.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare the toast by frying the hollowed crust in fresh butter until light brown.

  2. Pour the shrimp mixture onto the toast and serve.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimp
Provides the main substance and flavor of the dish, gently heated so they stay tender.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Butter
Carries the spices and adds richness to the sauce, and crisps the toast when fried.
Ground mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the sauce.
Shrimp liquor
Made from boiled shrimp heads, it gives the sauce its concentrated seafood flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in the butter. Stirring the flour into melted butter until it just begins to brown cooks out its raw taste and builds color and nutty flavor. Removing the pan too early leaves the sauce pasty, and letting it burn gives a bitter taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, veal, sherry):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, veal, sherry. 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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