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Fricassee of Shrimps

A shrimp fricassee made with lard or butter, flour, onion, cloves, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, tomatoes, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Fricassee of Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, heat the lard or butter.

  2. Add the flour and stir until golden brown.

  3. Stir in the chopped onion until wilted.

  4. Add the shrimps and stir until they turn pale pink.

  5. Season with cloves, salt, red and black pepper, and Worcestershire sauce.

  6. Stir in the sieved tomatoes and let boil over low heat until ready to serve.

  7. Finally, add the sherry before serving.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Flour
Browned in the fat to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Shrimps
Provide the main protein; they turn pale pink as they cook through.
Stewed tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the sauce as they simmer.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a layer of flavour when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Flour must be stirred in the hot fat until golden brown, which cooks out raw starch taste and builds nutty flavour. Stopping too early leaves a pasty flavour, while going too far scorches it and gives a bitter taste.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, shrimp, onion, pepper, sauce, tomato):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, shrimp, onion, pepper, sauce, tomato. 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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