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Scallops of Fowl Au Bechamel

Thin slices of fowl are sautéed in clarified butter, salted, and served in a hot dish with boiling béchamel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Scallops of Fowl Au Bechamel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the scallops

  1. Remove the flesh from the fowls, taking it as intact as possible from the breast.

  2. Strip off the skin and slice the fillets into small thin scallops.

  3. Dip each scallop into clarified butter and arrange them in a clean frying pan.

  4. Sprinkle fine salt over the scallops.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry quickly without browning just before serving.

  2. Drain the scallops from the butter and pile them in the center of a hot dish.

  3. Sauce with boiling béchamel before serving.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Fowls
Provide the lean breast meat that is sliced into the scallops and forms the main body of the dish.
Clarified butter
Coats the scallops and carries heat for a quick fry, adding richness and flavor.
Bechamel sauce
Adds a smooth, creamy coating that moistens the cooked scallops and gives the dish its sauce.

The step that matters

Fry quickly without browning just before serving. Thin scallops cook through in very little time, and overcooking toughens the proteins and dries the meat. Browning also changes the flavor and appearance the dish depends on, so keep the heat moderate and the timing close to service.

“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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