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Mushrooms and Shrimps

A creamy sauce of shrimp, mushrooms, onion, sherry, and cream served in timbales with toasted breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Mushrooms and Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shrimp and mushrooms

  1. Fry the chopped onion in butter in a skillet until brown.

  2. Add the mushrooms and cook until tender.

  3. Cover the shrimp with sherry and let the shrimp stand for 30 minutes.

  4. Add the shrimp to the mushrooms.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Melt the remaining butter in a separate pan.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth but not browned.

  3. Gradually add the cream, stirring until smooth.

  4. Remove the sauce from heat.

  5. Stir in the beaten egg yolk, additional sherry, salt, and paprika.

  6. Gently mix all ingredients together.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce in timbales.

  2. Top the timbales with toasted breadcrumbs.

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. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

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

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

  4. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  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

Butter
Fat that cooks the onion and forms the base of the roux for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, stable sauce.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce and gives it a rich, smooth texture.
Egg yolk
Enriches and further thickens the sauce, adding richness and body when stirred in off heat.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the seafood and mushroom flavors.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavor and a tender, meaty texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat and can scramble or curdle if the sauce is too hot, so it should be added after removing the sauce from heat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, shrimp, flour, butter, sherry, cream, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, shrimp, flour, butter, sherry, cream, egg. 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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