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Shrimp Puffs

Shrimp Puffs are small pastry squares filled with a shrimp mixture, fried until pale brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Shrimp Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mix minced shrimp with butter, anchovy paste, cayenne, cream, and white roux.

Make the pastry

  1. Make a paste with flour, butter, and cold water.

  2. Roll the paste out thin.

  3. Cut the dough into 2x3 inch squares.

Shape and fry

  1. Place shrimp mixture on each square. Fold over. Wet edges. Press to seal.

  2. Brush with egg yolk.

  3. Fry in boiling lard until pale brown.

  4. Serve hot on cut paper.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 filling, giving savory flavor and a tender, moist interior.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pastry that encloses the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to both the filling and the pastry.
White roux
Thickens the shrimp filling so it holds together inside the pastry.
Anchovy paste
Adds concentrated savory, salty depth to the shrimp filling.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the surface to promote golden browning.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges. Wet edges pressed firmly together bond the dough. If the seal is weak, the filling can leak out and burst the puffs in the hot lard.

“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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