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Shells filled with a sauce of scallop, anchovy, and tomato, baked until moist.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Kenney-Herbert, A. R. (Arthur Robert), 1840-1916 · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 29 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Menu Xv

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Turn the last to a sauce with half an ounce of butter and half an ounce of flour.

  2. Bring the sauce to the boil.

  3. Stir in a tablespoonful of tomato conserve. Mix well.

  4. Pass the sauce through a hair sieve.

Prepare the filling

  1. Butter the shells.

  2. Chop up the cold fish. Chop up the hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Put the mince into a bowl.

  4. Season it with salt and white pepper. Add a pinch of mace.

  5. Cut up the fillets of anchovy and mix them with the mince.

  6. Moisten with enough of the sauce to bring the mixture to the consistency of rather fluid jam.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the shells with this mixture.

  2. Smooth their surfaces.

  3. Shake a canopy of finely sifted raspings over them.

  4. Dot a few little pieces of butter over them also.

  5. Bake, but do not allow the coquilles to dry up in that process.

  6. They should come to table moist and thoroughly hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1110Calories
56 gProtein
43 gFat
123 gCarbs

Counts 12 of 14 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 12 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Scallop100g cooked111
Parmesan Cheese1 oz (28g)110
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Bacon1 slice cooked (8g)43
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Cakenot in our table0
Macenot 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.

By Kenney-Herbert, A. R. (Arthur Robert), 1840-1916. 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. See the original page.

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. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and helps the sauce and topping brown lightly and taste rich.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it holds the filling together in the shells.
Hard-boiled eggs
Bind the minced fish into a firm, sliceable filling.
Tomato conserve
Adds acidity and concentrated tomato flavour to the sauce.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Baking without drying out. The filling is a moist sauce-bound mixture, and overbaking evaporates its liquid and toughens the proteins, so it must be heated only until hot throughout and still moist.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, tomato, mushroom, scallop, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, tomato, mushroom, scallop, egg. 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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