Skip to main content
Main

Fish Ragout in Scallop-shells

A fish ragout served in scallop shells, cooked with butter, wine, spices, and topped with breadcrumbs and Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Fish Ragout in Scallop-shells

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.

Make the ragout

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the diced fish, salt, and lemon juice; stew gently until cooked.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix gravy, white wine, cayenne pepper, lemon peel, ginger, and nutmeg.

  4. Thicken the sauce with flour and butter until dense.

  5. Stir in the cooked fish, yolks of three eggs, and anchovy butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Spoon the mixture into scallop shells, top with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese.

  2. Drizzle with oiled butter and bake at 400°F (200°C) until pale brown, about 10 minutes.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main body of the filling, cooked gently until flaky in the ragout.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so the filling holds together in the shells.
Eggs (in the method)
Yolks enrich and bind the filling, helping it set when heated.
Anchovy butter
Adds a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich gravy.
Parmesan cheese
Browns and crisps on top during baking, adding savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with flour and butter until dense. Flour must be cooked long enough in the butter and liquid to lose its raw taste and thicken fully; otherwise the filling stays runny and can taste floury.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, fish, lemon, white wine, pepper, nutmeg, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, fish, lemon, white wine, pepper, nutmeg, flour. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipes