Skip to main content
Main

Shrimp Toast

Shrimp toast is a dish of shrimp mixed with egg and milk, served on toasted bread with anchovy paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Shrimp Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the shrimp filling

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the shrimps and heat until hot.

  3. In a bowl, beat together the egg and milk, then add salt and cayenne.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the shrimp and cook until thickened.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the toast lightly with anchovy paste.

  2. Top the toast with the shrimp mixture and serve hot.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Thickens the shrimp mixture as it cooks, giving it a soft, creamy set.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the shrimps in the pan.
Milk
Thins the egg so it blends smoothly and cooks into a tender mixture.
Shrimps
Provide the main savoury filling for the dish.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the shrimp and cook until thickened. Egg proteins set as they heat, so cooking gently while stirring keeps the mixture creamy; too much heat or too long makes it curdle and turn grainy.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes