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Shrimp Toast

Shrimp Toast is a dish of toasted bread topped with a shrimp mixture seasoned with salt, cayenne, and anchovy paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the shrimps and cook until hot.

  3. In a bowl, beat together the egg and milk, then add to the shrimp mixture.

  4. Season with salt and cayenne, stirring until the mixture thickens.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread anchovy paste on the buttered toast.

  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

Shrimps
Provide the main filling and savory flavor of the topping.
Egg
Thickens the warm shrimp mixture as it cooks, giving it a creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the shrimp mixture.
Milk
Dilutes the egg slightly, helping it blend smoothly into the mixture.
Anchovy paste
Adds salty, savory depth to the buttered toast beneath the topping.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and milk. The egg must be stirred into the hot shrimp mixture over gentle heat. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the mixture is too hot or left unstirred, the egg can scramble into lumps instead of thickening it smoothly.

“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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