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Scallops

Breaded scallops fried in hot fat and served with tartare sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Scallop and pepper work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 154 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Scallops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash scallops quickly and dry them between cloths.

Bread and fry

  1. Dip scallops in seasoned cracker crumbs, then in slightly beaten eggs mixed with water, and back in the crumbs.

  2. Place scallops in a frying basket and immerse in smoking hot fat for one minute.

  3. Drain on brown paper and serve with tartare sauce.

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. Scallop + peppertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Scallop + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together90 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Scallops
Main protein that is cooked quickly so it stays tender inside the crisp coating.
Cracker crumbs
Form the crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Eggs
Bind the cracker crumbs to the scallops so the coating holds during frying.

The step that matters

Frying in smoking hot fat for one minute. The fat must be very hot so the coating sets and browns quickly. If the fat is cooler, the crumbs absorb oil and turn greasy, and the scallop overcooks before the coating crisps.

“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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