Cream Scallops
I pint scallops, fresh or canned I pint thin white sauce Wash and drain the scallops, add them to the sauce and cook about fifteen minutes in a double boiler.
A plain creamed shellfish dish of the sort that filled the fish chapter of American cookbooks between the wars. The one thing worth changing is the cooking time.
- Cut the time drasticallyFifteen minutes turns scallops to rubber and weeps liquid into the sauce. Bay scallops need about 2 minutes in hot sauce, sea scallops sliced in half about 3 to 4; they are done the moment they turn opaque, and residual heat finishes them.
- A pint of scallopsShellfish was commonly sold by liquid measure. A pint is roughly 1 pound of shucked scallops, which is 4 modest servings creamed.
- Thin white sauceThe standard thin white sauce of the period is about 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon flour per cup of milk, with salt and a little white pepper. Two cups gives a sauce that coats rather than cloaks.
- Canned scallopsThese are effectively gone from grocery shelves. Use fresh or thawed frozen scallops; if frozen, drain them well and pat dry, since released water thins the sauce.
- Remove the side muscleThe small tough tab on the side of each scallop stays chewy no matter how long it cooks. Pull it off while washing them.
- The double boilerMost likely it is here to keep the milk from scorching rather than to cook the scallops slowly. If you use a heavy saucepan over low heat instead, stir and watch it.
- ServingCreamed scallops of this era went onto buttered toast, into patty shells, or into a shallow dish topped with buttered crumbs and browned briefly under high heat.
Creamed dishes like this one were a common way American home kitchens handled shellfish in the early twentieth century, when a white sauce stretched an expensive ingredient and made it manageable for a cook serving a family. New Delineator Recipes was published by Butterick, whose women's magazine The Delineator gave the book its name, and this recipe's allowance of canned scallops reflects the reach of the canning industry alongside the fish market. The fifteen-minute cooking time looks like a period habit rather than an error in transcription; shellfish was generally cooked well done in the household books of the day.