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Scallops
For 1 pine of scallops take 2 tablespoons Crisco. Melt in frying pan, add scallops and 2 minced onions and 1 tablespoon flour with 1 pint liquor from scallops. Cook thoroughly, seasoning with salt and bit of paprika, then add 1/2 cup breadcrumbs and yolks of 4 eggs. Fill small shells with mixture and bake in quick oven, adding, if liked, little grated cheese.
A creamed scallop mixture baked in shells, from one of the Crisco-sponsored cookbooks of the 1910s. The instructions assume you have shucked the scallops yourself and saved every drop of liquid, which is where most of the trouble lies.
- "1 pine" is a pintA typesetter's slip for pint. A pint of shucked scallops is roughly 1 lb, or about 450 g of bay or small sea scallops.
- The pint of liquor will not existShucked scallops from a fish counter come nearly dry, and even home-shucked scallops yield only a few tablespoons. Make up the difference with milk, light cream or fish stock, and expect to use closer to a cup of total liquid than a pint, or the filling will never thicken.
- One tablespoon of flour is not enoughWith a pint of liquid that ratio gives a thin sauce. For a filling that holds in a shell, work toward 2 tablespoons of flour per cup of liquid and cook the roux a minute before adding it.
- "Cook thoroughly" is the wrong instruction hereScallops are done in two or three minutes and turn rubbery beyond that. Cook the onion and flour first, build the sauce, then fold the scallops in at the end so their only real heat comes from the oven.
- Egg yolks off the heatAdd the four yolks after the pan is off the burner, stirring quickly, or they will scramble in the hot sauce. They set in the oven.
- CriscoStill sold, and the recipe exists partly to advertise it. Butter gives a better result in a creamed shellfish sauce and can be swapped one for one.
- "Quick oven"Roughly 400-450F. The filling is already cooked, so this is a 10-15 minute browning; pull it when the tops are golden and the centres bubble.
- Small shellsReal scallop shells or 4-6 oz ramekins. Set them on a baking sheet, as they tip easily and the filling boils over. A pint of scallops fills four generously.
A Calendar of Dinners belongs to a genre that flourished in the 1910s: the cookbook published by a manufacturer to teach cooks to use a new product. Crisco, the hydrogenated vegetable shortening introduced by Procter & Gamble in 1911, needed such books, since American cooks were accustomed to butter, lard or drippings for frying and for white sauce, and the recipes in the collection are written to show that the new fat will do. The dish itself is older than the shortening: baking a creamed mixture in the animal's own shell is a French coquille, and by the late nineteenth century American books were filling scallop shells with everything from oysters to minced chicken.