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Fried Scallops

Fried scallops coated in seasoned crumbs or flour, pan‑fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Scallops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the scallops, drain, and dry thoroughly.

  2. Season the cracker-crumbs with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the scallops in the beaten egg, then coat with the seasoned crumbs.

  2. Fry the scallops in hot fat until golden brown.

  3. Alternatively, season the scallops and roll them in flour before frying.

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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Scallop + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Scallop + peppertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Scallop + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together90 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Main protein; the cooked scallop is the dish itself, so it should be dried well before coating.
Fine cracker-crumbs
Form the crisp, browned coating that surrounds the scallops when fried.
Beaten egg
Acts as a glue that helps the crumbs adhere to the scallops.
Flour
Optional dry coating that helps the surface brown and stay dry before frying.

The step that matters

Drying the scallops thoroughly. Surface moisture turns to steam in hot fat, which can loosen the coating and keep it from browning and crisping, so the scallops must be patted dry before dipping.

“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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