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Sauce

Shrimp Sauce

A white sauce with shrimp, anchovy essence, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper, simmered and served warm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Shrimp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Simmer shrimp shells in milk and water to make fish stock for the white sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the picked shrimps, anchovy essence, lemon juice, and cayenne to the hot white sauce, then cover the saucepan.

  2. Let it stand for a few minutes without boiling.

  3. Serve warm.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Shrimp + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Anchovy + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sauce + shrimptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

White sauce
Its flour-thickened base gives the sauce body and a smooth, creamy texture.
Picked shrimps
Provide the main flavor and a tender, sweet bite.
Anchovy essence
Adds a savory, salty depth that rounds out the fish flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.
Cayenne pepper
Adds a mild background heat.

The step that matters

Let the shrimp stand without boiling. Shrimp turns rubbery and tough when it is overcooked. Boiling the sauce would toughen the shrimp, so the gentle heat of the hot sauce should cook them through while the pan stands covered.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, shrimp, anchovy, 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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