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Prawns and Shrimps

A stew of prawns and shrimps cooked with gravy, claret, onion, herbs, and seasoned with pepper, salt, mushroom ketchup, anchovy essence, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Prawns and Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the meat from the shells of the prawns and shrimps.

Stew

  1. In a stewpan, combine the meat, gravy, claret, minced onion, sweet herbs, pepper, and salt.

  2. Stew gently until the prawns and shrimps are tender.

  3. Add mushroom ketchup, essence of anchovy, and butter rolled in flour.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with bread-slices.

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. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Prawns and shrimps (in the method)
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender and firm when gently stewed.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the stew liquid as the flour starches gelatinize with heat.
Claret
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, umami depth to the stew.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth of flavour to the stew.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the prawns and shrimps are tender. High heat or long cooking toughens shellfish proteins, making the meat rubbery. Gentle simmering cooks them through while keeping them tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mushroom, ketchup, anchovy, butter, flour, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom, ketchup, anchovy, butter, flour, bread. 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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