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Curried Scallops

A quick scallop dish simmered in a curry-flavored sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Curried Scallops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and drain the scallops.

  2. In a pan, brown the butter.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir in the flour, curry powder, cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, and stock.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add the scallops.

  3. Cook for 5 minutes or until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast with rice.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Scallop + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 protein, which turns tender when cooked gently in the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns to give a nutty flavor.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Curry powder
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavor to the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries savory flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the scallops for 5 minutes. Scallops are delicate protein. Overcooking causes the proteins to tighten and squeeze out moisture, making them rubbery and dry, so they should be removed as soon as they are tender.

“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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