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Shrimp Sauce

A creamy sauce made with broth, butter, flour, shrimp, egg yolk, cream, paprika, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Shrimp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the broth and butter over medium heat.

  2. Mix in the flour until smooth.

  3. Add the mashed shrimps and stir well.

  4. Incorporate the egg yolk and thick cream, mixing thoroughly.

  5. Season with paprika and coarse sea salt to taste.

  6. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together988 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  3. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, body-rich sauce as it cooks.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.
Egg yolk
Enriches and emulsifies the sauce, adding body and a silky texture.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a smooth mouthfeel in the sauce.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes. Once the egg yolk and cream are in, the sauce can curdle or turn grainy if it boils too hard or too long. Keep the heat controlled so the yolk thickens 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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