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Fried Scallops

Fried scallops coated in egg and breadcrumbs, pan‑fried until golden and served hot with tartar or tomato cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,013 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fried Scallops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the yolk of the egg and mix it with the tomato catsup.

  2. Sprinkle the scallops with salt and paprika.

  3. Coat the scallops with the egg mixture, then with the bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the scallops in hot deep fat until they are golden brown.

  2. Drain and serve very hot with Sauce Tartare or Cream of Tomato Sauce.

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. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + tomatotop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Binds the crumb coating to the scallops and helps it brown when fried.
Stale or dried bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden crust that protects the scallops during frying.
Tomato catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the egg coating, flavouring the crust.

The step that matters

Frying in hot deep fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it browns. Frying at a high, steady heat sets the crust quickly, keeping the scallops moist inside and the coating crisp.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread. 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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