Name: Shrimp Salad
Ingredients: ⅓ cup shrimp, cooked; 1-3 pickles, half sweet and half sour, finely chopped and drained of vinegar; 1-3 hard boiled eggs; mayonnaise dressing or cooked dressing

Why it works: Shrimp and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 862 recipes. Both carry 3-methylbutanol, which smells malty, whiskey. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

⅓ cup shrimp, cooked
1-3 pickles, half sweet and half sour, finely chopped and drained of vinegar
1-3 hard boiled eggs
mayonnaise dressing or cooked dressing

Directions

Combine the cooked shrimp, chopped pickles, and chopped hard boiled eggs in a bowl.
Add mayonnaise dressing or cooked dressing to the mixture and stir gently to combine.

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.

Shrimp + vinegartop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together862 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).
Shrimp + eggtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,829 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).
Vinegar + eggtop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,922 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Vinegar and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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 protein and the seafood flavor of the salad.
Hard boiled eggs: Add soft, creamy texture and body that holds the salad together.
Pickles: Add acidity and a sharp, tangy bite that balances the rich dressing.
Mayonnaise dressing or cooked dressing: Adds moisture and fat, binding the salad and carrying its flavor.

“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.