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Scallops Brestoise

A baked scallop dish cooked in shells with butter, onions, flour, broth, egg yolks, breadcrumbs, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Scallops Brestoise

serves 6
Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Blanch the scallops in 1 ounce of butter for 10 minutes, then drain.

  2. Chop the onions.

  3. Sauté the onions in a saucepan with 1 ounce of butter until brown.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of flour, stirring carefully.

  5. Moisten the mixture with ½ pint of scallop liquor or white broth.

  6. Let the mixture reduce while stirring.

  7. Season the mixture with ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt, ¼ pinch of white pepper, and a little cayenne pepper.

Fill and bake

  1. Add the chopped scallops, 4 egg yolks, a bruised clove of garlic, ½ cup of fresh bread crumbs, and 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley.

  2. Stir the mixture well for 2 minutes.

  3. Fill six scallop shells with the mixture.

  4. Sprinkle the tops of the shells with fresh bread crumbs.

  5. Moisten the tops slightly with clarified butter.

  6. Place the shells on a baking sheet.

  7. Brown the shells in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes.

  8. Serve on a hot dish garnished with parsley leaves.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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, cooked gently in butter before being mixed into the sauce.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and enrich it, helping it set into a creamy mass when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and helps the onions brown.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma once browned in butter.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce that holds the filling together.
Bread crumbs
Add body to the filling and form a golden crust on top when browned.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the onions and reducing the liquid. Cooking the flour briefly in the butter and onion fat removes its raw taste, and reducing the liquid while stirring keeps the sauce smooth and thick enough to bind the filling. Stirring also prevents lumps and scorching on the pan base.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (scallop, butter, onion, flour, pepper, egg, clove):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against scallop, butter, onion, flour, pepper, egg, clove. 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.

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