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Shrimps, Potted

A dish of boiled shrimps coated in butter and seasoned with cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Shrimps, Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the shrimps and chop them slightly.

Cook and season

  1. In a lined saucepan, melt some butter.

  2. Add the chopped shrimps and toss to coat them in the butter.

  3. Season with a slight amount of cayenne pepper.

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. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Shrimp + peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,692 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Freshly boiled shrimps
Provide the main protein, whose texture is the centre of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky coating that carries the flavour of the shrimp.
Cayenne pepper
Adds a gentle heat and aroma that sharpens the sweetness of the shrimp.

The step that matters

Toss the shrimp in the butter gently. The shrimps are already cooked, so they only need warming through. Prolonged or high heat toughens the protein and makes the shrimp rubbery, so keep the heat low and the contact brief.

“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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