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Creamed Shrimp and Green Peas

A creamy shrimp and green peas dish served with toast or crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creamed Shrimp and Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse the peas under cold water for 10 minutes to remove preservatives.

  2. Heat the cream in a chafing dish or steam bath cooker.

  3. Add the drained peas to the cream.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for 5 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix butter and flour to form a paste.

  2. Thin the paste with a little cream.

  3. Season the paste with salt and pepper.

  4. Stir the paste into the cooker.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the shrimp to the cooker.

  2. Cook for an additional 5 minutes.

  3. Serve with buttered toast or fresh crackers.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  4. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cream
Forms the liquid base of the dish and gives it a rich, smooth body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, which carries flavor and keeps the sauce smooth.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a sauce when cooked with butter and liquid.
Peas
Add sweetness and color, and soften gently in the hot cream.
Shrimp (in the method)
Provide the main seafood flavor and a tender texture when cooked briefly in the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the butter and flour paste into the hot cream. Flour needs heat and liquid to swell and thicken. Thinning the paste first and stirring it in well helps it disperse evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth sauce.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour, 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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