No. 1077

Scallops, Orly

Petoncles a la Orly

Put the scallops into a bowl with salt, pepper, nutmeg, shallots, oil and lemon juice, let marinate for one hour, then roll them in cracker-dust and plunge them into hot, white frying fat to fry a fine color. They are to be dressed on a folded napkin and garnished with fried parsley, serving a tomato sauce (No. 549) separately.

With Milk and Flour.—Season with salt and pepper; moisten with a little milk, roll them in flour and fry a golden brown; drain, wipe and dress the scallops on a folded napkin.

With Eggs and Bread-crumbs.—Season the scallops with salt and pepper, immerse in beaten eggs, roll in bread-crumbs and fry to a nice color; drain, wipe and dress on a napkin.

← No. 1076 Scallops a la Mariniere Scallops No. 1078 Scallops on Toast, Baked →

For the Modern Kitchen

Three variations on the same idea: marinate or season scallops, coat them, deep-fry them fast, and send tomato sauce alongside. The frying window is very short, and everything else is preparation.

The hinge: seconds, not minutesScallops are cooked through at about 125-130F internal and turn to rubber past that. At a proper fat temperature they need roughly 1 to 2 minutes for the coating to color, and that is the whole cooking time. Fry in small batches so the fat does not drop.
"Hot, white frying fat""White" here most likely points to a pale refined lard or clarified beef fat rather than a darker drippings fat. Any neutral high-smoke-point fat works; hold it at 370-375F, which is where a bread crumb browns in under a minute.
Cracker-dustFinely rolled soda or water crackers, sieved. Crush plain unsalted saltines to a coarse powder in a food processor and reduce the added salt in the seasoning accordingly.
Dry them before coatingThe marinade of oil and lemon juice leaves the surface wet, and wet scallops shed their crust in the fat. Lift them out, blot thoroughly, then coat. The lemon also begins to firm the exterior, so do not extend the hour.
Fried parsleyCurly parsley must be washed and then dried completely, or it will spit violently in the fat. It needs only 15 to 20 seconds and goes from brilliant green to brown quickly.
Tomato sauce No. 549Ranhofer's tomato sauce is a stock-based sauce in the French manner rather than a plain tomato puree. A smooth, well-reduced tomato sauce with a little butter beaten in at the end serves the same purpose; keep it thin enough to pool, not to cling.
"Dressed on a folded napkin"A linen napkin folded on the platter absorbed frying fat at table; the book calls for it repeatedly with fried dishes. A rack or paper does the work now, though the napkin is still the correct look if you want it.
Which scallops, and yieldThe recipe appears to assume the white adductor muscle only, as commonly sold in American markets. Sea scallops are large enough to halve horizontally so they cook evenly; bay scallops fry whole. Figure roughly 4 to 6 oz per person as an appetizer, so about 1 to 1 1/2 lb for four.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of what he cooked during some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the entry is typical of the book's method: one dish, then terse variants for the same raw material. A l'Orly denotes a specific French treatment -- fillets marinated, coated, deep-fried and served with tomato sauce apart -- applied most often to sole and whiting; the origin of the name is disputed, with a derivation from an earlier form, a l'Horly, among the suggestions, alongside the town near Paris, and none of them settled. That Ranhofer devotes a whole section to scallops reflects a difference in practice: European cooks commonly used the roe and coral along with the muscle and often served the shell as the vessel, while New York markets sold the shucked white muscle alone, which is exactly what a quick deep-fry suits.