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Deviled Scallops

A baked scallop dish topped with a creamy, seasoned breadcrumb crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Deviled Scallops

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the scallops

  1. Pour boiling water over the scallops and let them stand for three minutes.

  2. Drain the scallops and cut them into quarters.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine chicken stock, thin cream, butter, flour, salt, lemon juice, and cayenne.

  2. Cook until thickened. Remove from heat.

  3. Stir in the slightly beaten eggs and scallops.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into ramekins or scallop shells.

  2. Cover with buttered breadcrumbs.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Scallops
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender and firm when gently heated in the sauce.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the sauce and scallops into a soft, custard-like texture.
Flour
Thickens the chicken stock and cream into a smooth, sauce-like base.
Thin cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the sauce a smooth, mellow body.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the sauce and helps the breadcrumb topping brown.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thickened. Flour thickens only when the liquid reaches a simmer and is stirred enough to cook out its raw starch taste. Removing it too early leaves a thin sauce, and the eggs added afterward may not set properly.

“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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