Why it works: Scallop and butter work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and 160 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare
Place the melted butter, lemon juice, pepper and parsley in a large bowl and mix well.
Add the scallops and turn to coat.
Cook
Cut each bacon rasher in half widthwise and then wrap each scallop in half a rasher of bacon, threading them onto skewers as you go and reserving any remaining butter mixture.
Cook over hot coals for 3-4 minutes each side, basting with the remaining butter mixture, until the bacon is crisp and golden brown.
Transfer the skewers to a serving platter and drizzle any remaining butter mixture over the top.
Serve immediately.
This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.
Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.
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.
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Scallop + buttertop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together160 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,036 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together34,118 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,039 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Parsley + buttertop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together28,543 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bacon
- Crisps and browns as it cooks, adding salty, smoky fat that flavours the scallop.
- Scallops
- Provide the sweet, tender seafood centre that the bacon wraps and the butter coats.
- Unsalted butter
- Carries the lemon and parsley and keeps the scallops moist while they cook.
- Lemons
- Add acidity that brightens the rich bacon and butter.
The step that matters
Cooking over hot coals for 3-4 minutes each side. Scallops are delicate and overcooked scallops turn rubbery and dry. Basting with the butter mixture helps keep them moist while the bacon crisps, so the timing has to be watched closely.
“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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