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Scallops

Scallops baked in their shells with breadcrumb and parsley filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scallops

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the scallops

  1. Open the scallop shells and trim away the beards and black portions, keeping only the yellow and white parts.

  2. Wash and drain the scallop meat, then mince it.

  3. Mix the minced scallop meat with the bread crumbs, parsley, salt, and pepper.

Fill and bake

  1. Scour and dry the scallop shells, butter the insides, and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  2. Fill each shell with the scallop mixture, cover with more bread crumbs, and dot with butter.

  3. Bake in a hot oven until browned and heated through.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot with vinegar.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Scallops
Form the main filling, providing the savory seafood flavor and tender texture once cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the filling, then form a browned, crisp topping in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until browned and heated through. The filling must be heated fully so the scallops cook through, while the bread crumb topping needs enough dry heat to brown rather than stay pale or soggy.

“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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