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Salad

Shrimp Salad

A salad of shrimp, celery, and hard‑boiled egg yolks dressed with vinegar, butter, mustard, cayenne, sugar, salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs smooth.

  2. Add a little cayenne pepper, vinegar, melted butter, sugar, mustard, and salt to the yolks.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix in equal parts of chopped celery and shrimp.

  2. Pour the dressing over the salad just before serving.

  3. Mix thoroughly and squeeze the juice of a lemon over the whole dish.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their fat and emulsifying lecithin bind the dressing into a smooth, creamy mixture.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat that give the dressing a smooth, silky texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Celery
Provides a crisp, crunchy texture that contrasts with the soft shrimp.
Shrimp
Forms the main protein of the salad, giving it bulk and a mild sweet flavor.

The step that matters

Pour the dressing over the salad just before serving. Shrimp and celery stay crisp and fresh only briefly once dressed; the acid in the dressing and lemon juice will slowly soften vegetables and toughen seafood if left to stand.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, vinegar, shrimp, butter, sugar, mustard. 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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