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Creamed Shrimp

A shrimp dish simmered in cream and milk, thickened with cornstarch and seasoned with pepper, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creamed Shrimp

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine cream and milk.

  2. Add the can of shrimp, butter, pepper, salt, and parsley.

  3. Heat gently until warm.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a small bowl, mix cornstarch with a little water to make a slurry.

  2. Stir the slurry into the shrimp mixture to thicken.

  3. 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds mild sweetness and creaminess.
Shrimp
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when heated with it.

The step that matters

Stirring the slurry into the shrimp mixture. Cornstarch must be fully dispersed in cold liquid before adding it, then heated, so it gelatinizes evenly. Added as dry powder or to a boiling liquid, it clumps and thickens unevenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk, shrimp, butter, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, shrimp, butter, 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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