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Stewed Scallops
Put some scallops in a stewpan with a half blade of mace, a little sugar and sufficient water to cover them; stew gently by the edge of the fire for about thirty minutes or until tender. Put one and one-half ounces of butter in a stewpan with one tablespoonful of flour and mix it over the fire, then stir in some of the liquor in which the scallops were stewed, three tablespoonfuls of cream and flavor with a little grated nutmeg. Arrange the scallops on a hot dish, pour the sauce over them and serve.
A simple velouté-and-cream sauce built on the scallops' own cooking liquor. One instruction has to be ignored outright.
- The thirty minutesScallops are done in two to three minutes in barely simmering liquid — they turn opaque and firm to a gentle bounce. Thirty minutes produces rubber. Poach them briefly, lift them out, then reduce the liquor for the sauce.
- Why the book says half an hourPart of the answer may be that scallops of the period were not always trimmed as they are now: sold in the shell or roughly shucked, the tough side-muscle and skirt can be left attached, and those do need longer cooking. Modern shucked scallops are the adductor muscle only; pull off the small opaque tab on the side and they need almost no time.
- "By the edge of the fire"This means the cool part of a coal range — a bare simmer, no rolling boil. On a modern burner, the lowest setting with the surface just trembling.
- A blade of maceMace is the lacy outer covering of the nutmeg seed, sold whole as blades or ground. Half a blade is roughly an eighth of a teaspoon ground. The recipe does not say so, but a whole blade is easier to fish out before the liquor goes into the sauce.
- QuantitiesThe original never says how many scallops. Assume about 1 1/2 lb, which suits the sauce as written and serves four as a first course. One and a half ounces of butter is three tablespoons.
- The sauceCook the butter and flour together a minute without colouring, then add liquor gradually to about 3/4 cup for a coating consistency, and the cream at the end. Do not boil hard after the cream goes in.
- The sugarA pinch, not a spoonful — it flatters the natural sweetness of the shellfish. Salt is unmentioned but needed; season the finished sauce, not the poaching water, since it gets reduced.
- ServingWarm the dish, and hold the poached scallops in a little of their liquor rather than dry, or they tighten while the sauce is made.
Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's celebrated maître d'hôtel, published his Cook Book in 1896, and its shellfish chapters reflect a New York that ate enormous quantities of cheap local seafood. Scallops were then largely a coastal and market-town food, sold shucked in tubs by the quart rather than by weight; the bay scallops of Long Island and New England were small and sweet, and the deep-water sea scallop fishery was still in its infancy. The mace, nutmeg and pinch of sugar here belong to an older English tradition of stewed and buttered shellfish — the same seasoning logic that runs through eighteenth-century recipes for stewed oysters and cockles — carried into a hotel kitchen and finished with a French roux and cream. It is a good example of how much of Oscar's book is plain Anglo-American cookery in continental dress.