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Scallops Stewed

Scallops stewed in butter, flour, lemon juice or vinegar, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Scallops Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the scallops

  1. Open the scallops' shells and remove the scallops.

  2. Trim away the beard and black parts.

  3. Wash the scallops well in two or three waters.

  4. Cover them with warm water.

Cook and make the sauce

  1. Boil gently for 50 to 60 minutes.

  2. Knead the flour and butter together. Mix in a little salt and pepper.

  3. Separate the mixture into small pieces.

  4. Add them to the stewpan 20 minutes before serving.

Serve

  1. When ready, place the scallops on a hot dish.

  2. Season the sauce to taste. Add lemon juice or vinegar.

  3. Pour over the scallops.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Scallop + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together160 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they gently simmer.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce when kneaded with butter and added.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter mixture. Flour needs heat and time in liquid to swell and thicken. Adding the pieces too late leaves the sauce pasty and floury, so they should go in 20 minutes before serving as directed.

“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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