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Scallop Cocktail

A chilled scallop dish served in cocktail glasses with a sauce of chives, shallot, parsley, Tabasco, Worcestershire, ketchup, mustard, horseradish, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Scallop Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the scallops for 5 minutes.

  2. Drain the scallops and add them to the sauce mixture.

  3. Chill the mixture and serve in cocktail glasses.

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. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

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

  2. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Scallops
Provide the main protein, whose texture sets the dish's tender bite.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its sweetness.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce, giving it a thick, cling-to-the-seafood consistency.
Olive oil
Adds fat that gives the sauce a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Grated horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat and aroma to the sauce.
Chopped shallot
Adds a mild onion-like aroma and savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the scallops for 5 minutes. Scallop protein tightens and squeezes out moisture when overheated, so even a short extra minute makes them rubbery and dry. Stopping at the set time keeps them tender and juicy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  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.

“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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