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Crispy Scallops with Chipotle Tartar Sauce

Scallops coated in cornmeal and fried, served with a chipotle tartar sauce.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and scallop work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 130 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Crispy Scallops with Chipotle Tartar Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Mix ½ cup tartar sauce, 2 tbs chopped scallions, 1 tbs orange juice, and 1½ tsp chipotle hot pepper sauce in a bowl. Let stand.

Coat and cook the scallops

  1. Pat 1 pound sea scallops dry between layers of paper towels.

  2. Put scallops, 3 tbs yellow cornmeal, ½ tsp salt, and ½ tsp paprika in a plastic bag, shake to coat.

  3. Heat 1 tbs oil in a skillet.

  4. Add scallops and cook until golden and just opaque at centers.

  5. Serve with the sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

338Calories
27 gProtein
15 gFat
28 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Shrimp100g cooked99
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Saucenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sauce + scalloptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together130 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Orange + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Pepper + scalloptop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + orangetop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together723 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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

Sea scallops
Provide the main protein, which turns golden and opaque when seared.
Yellow cornmeal
Forms a light coating that browns and adds a crisp exterior.
Tartar sauce
Provides a creamy base for the chipotle sauce, adding richness and moisture.
Chipotle hot pepper sauce
Adds smoky heat that flavors the sauce.

The step that matters

Pat the scallops dry before coating. Surface moisture keeps scallops from searing; drying them lets the cornmeal coating stick and the scallops brown instead of steam.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, pepper, scallop):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper, scallop. 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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