Home › Fish › Scallops and Eggs
Scallops and Eggs
1 pint scallops; 5 eggs; 2 tablespoonfuls butter; 1 teaspoonful parsley; salt and pepper.
Simmer the scallops for ten or fifteen minutes in slightly salted water. Pour off the water and cover quickly with cold. Pour this off and break the scallops in two.
Heat the butter in a frying-pan, put in the scallops, and stir about gently until they begin to color; break in the eggs, shake in salt and pepper, and stir all briskly until the eggs are cooked. Have ready a hot platter with squares of buttered toast. Pour the scallops over, sprinkle with a little finely minced parsley, and garnish the edge of the platter with a few springs of parsley, and serve at once.
A late-Victorian scramble that treats scallops as a savoury for toast rather than a main course. The one thing to change is the cooking time.
- Do not simmer them that longTen to fifteen minutes in water will turn scallops tough and stringy. Bay scallops are done in under a minute of gentle poaching, sea scallops in about two; alternatively skip the water entirely and go straight to the butter in the pan.
- A pint of scallopsSold by volume, this is roughly a pound. Bay scallops need no cutting; large sea scallops should be halved crosswise as the recipe suggests, or quartered.
- The cold-water shockPouring cold water over the drained scallops stops the carryover cooking. It is a sound step if you poach them, and unnecessary if you go straight to the pan.
- Dry them before fryingWet scallops will steam rather than colour. Blot them well, and use a pan wide enough that they are not crowded.
- Break in the eggsThe instruction is literal: the eggs go into the pan unbeaten and are stirred to a soft scramble around the scallops. Beating them first gives a more uniform result if you prefer that; either way pull the pan off the heat while the eggs are still slightly loose, as they set further on the hot platter.
- Toast squaresButtered toast trimmed and cut into squares, laid on a warmed platter. Do it before the eggs go in the pan, since the eggs will not wait.
- YieldFive eggs and a pound of scallops serve four as a light lunch or supper dish, two as a substantial one.