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Scallop Cocktail

A chilled appetizer of scallops mixed with herbs, spices, and sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Scallop and mustard work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and 14 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine scallops, chives, salt, shallot, white pepper, and olive oil.

  2. Add parsley, Tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup, dry mustard, horseradish, and vinegar, then mix well and serve chilled.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Scallop + mustardtop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together447 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together842 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Shallot + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,718 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Scallops
Provide the main body and tender, sweet seafood texture of the cocktail.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and firms the surface of the scallops.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and tomato acidity to the sauce.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that cuts through the richness of the seafood.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (scallop, chive, shallot, olive, parsley, sauce, tomato):

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against scallop, chive, shallot, olive, parsley, sauce, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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