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To Cook Scallops

Breaded scallops cooked in butter with pepper and salt, finished under a salamander.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Scallop and butter work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 160 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

To Cook Scallops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the scallops and remove the gills and black marks.

  2. Cut the scallops into four pieces.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry breadcrumbs in butter with pepper and salt until light brown.

  2. Add the scallops and fry for about 3.5 minutes, shaking the pan continuously.

  3. Press the scallops into shells or a dish and brown them with a salamander 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. Scallop + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together160 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Scallop + peppertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Scallops
Provide the main protein, which cooks quickly and turns firm and opaque when heated.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that contrasts with the tender scallop inside.
Butter
Carries the browning of the crumbs and adds richness and nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Frying the scallops for about 3.5 minutes. Scallops overcook easily; too long in the pan makes them tough and rubbery. Constant shaking keeps the crumbs and butter from scorching while the outside browns evenly.

“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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