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Creamed Shrimp in Pate Shells

A creamy shrimp mixture served hot in pastry shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Creamed Shrimp in Pate Shells

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan and stir in flour to keep mixture smooth.

  2. Add milk and simmer for 2 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and stir in cayenne pepper, salt, beaten egg, and shrimp.

  2. Return to heat for about 2 minutes, then serve hot in pate shells.

  3. If mixture is too thick, add more milk.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the white sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce that carries the shrimp.
Egg
Enriches the sauce and helps give it a slightly thicker, custard-like body.
Shrimp
Provides the main protein and flavour of the filling.

The step that matters

Adding the egg off the heat. Egg proteins set and can curdle or scramble when they meet hot liquid directly, so the egg is stirred in after removing the pan from the heat. Reheating gently afterward keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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