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Putted Shrimps

Shrimps baked with white pepper and butter, then jarred and covered with clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Putted Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the shelled shrimps in a dish.

  3. Sprinkle white pepper and salt over the shrimps.

  4. Dot the shrimps with small pieces of butter.

Bake and pack

  1. Bake in the oven until hot but not dry.

  2. Press the cooked shrimps into jars.

  3. Once cooled, cover the shrimps with clarified butter.

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

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

  2. White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shrimp + white peppertop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Form the main body of the dish and turn firm and opaque as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the shrimps from drying out during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until hot but not dry. Shrimp proteins tighten and toughen quickly when overcooked, so pulling them from the oven once they are just hot keeps them tender and moist.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, butter. 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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