Skip to main content
Main

Scotch Cakes

Scotch cakes are baked scallop shells filled with scallops, breadcrumbs, spices, and white sauce, topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Scotch Cakes

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 shells

  1. Trim the scallops by removing the beards and black parts.

  2. Clean 6 scallop shells and butter them.

  3. Sprinkle a few breadcrumbs in each shell.

Assemble

  1. Place 3 scallops in each shell.

  2. Season the scallops with cayenne, chopped parsley, and lemon juice.

  3. Add salt and pepper to the breadcrumbs.

  4. Cover the scallops with white sauce.

  5. Sprinkle additional breadcrumbs on top.

  6. Place small pieces of butter on top.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Scallop + saucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together130 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. 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

Scallops
Provide the main seafood filling that cooks through in the shell.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy body that keeps the scallops from drying out.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, absorbent layer that soaks up juices and helps the top brown.
Butter
Adds richness and encourages golden browning on the topping.

The step that matters

Covering the scallops with white sauce. Scallops are lean and overcook quickly, so a moist sauce layer shields them from the oven's direct heat and helps prevent them from becoming tough and dry.

“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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCheese ScallopCheese Scallop19 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes