Why it works: Shrimp and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,931 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Shrimp Toast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the shrimp paste
Pound a quarter of the shrimps into a paste using a potato masher or a mortar and pestle.
Mix the paste with half the butter and spread it on the slices of toast.
Cook and assemble
Warm the remaining butter in a frying pan.
Heat the shrimps in the butter.
Pile the heated shrimps on the toast in a dish, ensuring the toast is cut to a neat shape.
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.
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Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Shrimps
- Provide the main savoury filling and flavour of the toast.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, binding the shrimp paste and coating the shrimps when heated.
The step that matters
Heating the shrimps in the butter. Shrimp cook quickly and turn tough and rubbery if overheated. Heating them gently in butter just until opaque keeps them tender and moist.
“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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