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Salad

Shrimp Salad

A salad of shrimp, cucumber pickles, olives, hard‑boiled eggs, and mayonnaise served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the shrimps, sliced cucumber pickles, chopped olives, and chopped hard boiled eggs.

  2. Pour mayonnaise dressing over the mixture and toss gently to combine.

  3. Serve the salad on a bed of lettuce leaves.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Shrimp + olivetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,966 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Shrimp + lettucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Provide the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Hard boiled eggs
Add soft, creamy texture and richness to the salad.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and moisture, binding the ingredients together.
Cucumber pickles
Add acidity and a crisp, tangy bite.
Olives
Add salty, briny flavour.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, cucumber, olive, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, cucumber, olive, 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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