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Scallops, Scalloped
Procure the scallops when alive and as fresh as possible. Open them, loosen them from the shell, trim away the beards and the black portion, leaving the yellow and white parts of the fish. Wash them in two or three waters, and drain them. Scour and rinse the deeper shells, dry them, and butter thickly. Mince the scallops, and mix with them a third of their bulk in grated bread-crumbs, a liberal allowance of pepper and salt, and a little chopped parsley. A large table-spoonful of chopped parsley will be sufficient for a dozen scallops. Sprinkle a few bread-crumbs over the inside of the shell, and shake off those that do not adhere. Put in the minced fish, cover the surface with bread-crumbs, and lay little pieces of butter here and there on the top. Put the shells in a well-heated oven or in a Dutch oven before a clear fire, and let them remain until the contents are heated throughout and brown on the surface. Serve the scallops very hot in the shells on a neatly-folded napkin. A little vinegar should be sent to table with them, and four shells will be required for every dozen scallops. The shells should be carefully preserved, and may be used again and again for scalloped fish of any kind. Time to bake the scallops, half an hour. Probable cost, when plentiful, 1s. per dozen. Sufficient, one dozen for four persons.
A Victorian shell-baked scallop, closer to a savoury gratin than to the seared scallop of modern restaurant cooking. The one thing to change is the timing.
- Half an hour is far too longMinced scallop set in a shallow shell is heated through in well under ten minutes; thirty minutes turns it to rubber and drives off the liquid that keeps it tender. Bake at 425F for 8-10 minutes, or finish under the broiler until the crumbs colour.
- "A well-heated oven"Roughly 425-450F in modern terms, though the book gives no temperature. The point is to brown the crumb topping quickly rather than to cook the fish slowly, which is exactly why the long stated time misleads.
- The Dutch ovenNot the cast-iron pot. A Dutch oven of this period was an open-fronted metal reflector set before the fire, used for browning. A broiler or the top of a hot oven does the same job.
- Beards and the black portionThe frilly mantle and the dark digestive sac go; the white muscle and the orange-yellow roe (the coral) stay. Scallops sold shucked in the US almost never include the coral, so expect a paler, plainer filling than the book intends.
- Buying themLive scallops in the shell are the ideal and are still sold by good fishmongers; they should close or twitch when handled. Shucked scallops work, but buy dry-packed rather than those soaking in milky liquid, which weep water into the crumbs.
- Crumbs and shellsGrated bread-crumbs here means dry crumbs from stale bread, not the sandy commercial kind. If you have no deep shells, individual ramekins or gratin dishes of about half a cup hold the same amount.
- Yield and seasoningA dozen scallops fill four shells and serve four, as the recipe states. The "large table-spoonful" of chopped parsley per dozen, as given, is right; the "liberal allowance" of pepper and salt is generous by modern habit, so season the mince and taste before it goes in.
- The vinegarSent to table separately, as with oysters. A sharp malt or cider vinegar suits it; lemon does the same work if you prefer.
"Scalloped" is generally taken to have begun as a literal description: food baked and served in a scallop shell, which was the household's ready-made individual ovenproof dish long before ramekins were cheap. By the late nineteenth century the word had detached from the shellfish entirely, so that scalloped potatoes and scalloped oysters simply meant anything baked in a shallow dish with butter and crumbs; the instruction here to preserve the shells and use them "again and again for scalloped fish of any kind" catches that shift in progress. The costing -- a shilling a dozen when plentiful -- suggests an everyday shellfish rather than the luxury scallops have since become. The book's insistence on buying them alive is consistent with an era without reliable refrigeration, when shellfish were judged fresh by whether they were still moving.