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Prawns or Shrimps Potted

A dish of boiled prawns or shrimp mashed with butter and spices, pressed into small pots and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Prawns or Shrimps Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prawns

  1. Boil the prawns or shrimp in salted water for about 8 minutes.

  2. Shell the prawns or shrimp and slightly divide them.

Make the paste

  1. Pound the prawns or shrimp to a paste in a mortar with the butter and seasoning.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Pot and seal

  1. Press the mixture into small pots and cover with clarified butter.

  2. When cold, tie down the pots closely.

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. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Prawns or shrimp
Provide the main protein, which the pounding turns into a smooth, spreadable paste.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, binding the paste so it holds together and spreads smoothly.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealed top layer that protects the potted mixture from air.

The step that matters

Pounding and sieving the paste. Pounding the cooked prawns with butter until fine and then pressing the mixture through a sieve removes stringy bits and gives an even, smooth texture. Coarse lumps would make the spread grainy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, butter, pepper. 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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