Name: Creamed Shrimps with Green Peas
Ingredients: 1½ cups cream; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 small cans shrimps; 1 can French peas; 1 tablespoon Ogilvie’s Royal Household (flour); 2 eggs; ½ pound crackers

Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Creamed Shrimps with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Heat the cream in a saucepan until hot.
Add the butter and flour, stirring until smooth.

Finish and serve

Incorporate the shrimps, beaten eggs, and peas.
Heat thoroughly and serve on toast or toasted crackers.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,931 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,887 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Cream: Forms the liquid base of the sauce and gives it a rich, smooth body.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the sauce.
Flour: Thickens the cream into a smooth, creamy sauce as it heats.
Eggs: Add body and richness to the sauce when heated gently with the other ingredients.
Shrimps: Provide the main protein and savoury flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Heat thoroughly after adding the eggs. Eggs must be heated enough to cook and thicken without curdling or scrambling. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly so the sauce stays smooth while the egg proteins set.

Swap the peas

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

Almondfits better
Macadamia nutfits better
Peanutfits better
Peasthe original

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

Green Peas229 recipes

Green Peas Soup35 recipes

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

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Creamed Shrimps with Green Peas