No. 1078

Scallops on Toast, Baked

Croutes de Petoncles au Gratin.

Toast some slices of Jocko bread (No. 3416), and lay them on a well buttered dish. Blanch the scallops in a little white wine, slat and pepper, range them on the toast, one beside the other, very close together. Mix the scallop broth with some bechamel sauce (No. 409), and with this cover all the scallops and toast; besprinkle with bread raspings, grated cheese and butter, and brown them in a hot oven.

← No. 1077 Scallops, Orly Scallops No. 1079 St. Jacques Shells, Parisian Style—Large Spe →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade with stocks and sauces already standing, and he gives no quantities at all. The essentials are a very brief blanch and a hot oven.

The hinge: barely cook the scallops"Blanch" here means a 30–60 second dip in simmering wine, no more, since the scallops finish under the sauce in the oven. Scallops held longer than a couple of minutes squeeze out their water and turn rubbery and dry.
OvenThe book gives no temperatures; 'hot oven' translates to roughly 425-450F in a modern oven. The goal is colour on the crumbs and cheese in five to eight minutes, not further cooking of the shellfish; a broiler set high does the job just as well.
PétonclesThe French word means the small scallops — bay or queen scallops — rather than the large coquilles Saint-Jacques of the following recipe. Bay scallops, or sea scallops sliced into coins, sit close together on toast the way Ranhofer wants.
Jocko breadA cross-reference to a bread formula elsewhere in the book, so there is no modern equivalent on a shelf. Any close-textured white loaf cut about half an inch thick and toasted firm will hold the sauce without collapsing.
Bread raspingsDried crusts grated to a coarse powder — the nineteenth-century gratin crumb. Plain dried breadcrumbs work; panko browns too pale and too fast for this.
Béchamel and the scallop liquorRanhofer's No. 409 is a milk-based white sauce built on a butter-and-flour roux. Reduce the wine the scallops were blanched in before stirring it into the sauce, or the extra liquid will slacken it and run off the toast.
"Slat"Evidently an error for salt. Season the wine lightly - the cheese and the sauce both carry salt.
Yield and scaleNo quantities are given. Figure about 5 oz of scallops, one large slice of toast and 3 to 4 tablespoons of sauce per person as a first course; grated Parmesan or Gruyère for the top.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that kitchen's working repertoire set in type - which is why a dish this simple arrives loaded with cross-references to a bread and a mother sauce made elsewhere in the house. The book gives a run of consecutive numbers to scallops, and American scallop fisheries did expand in the later nineteenth century. American practice differed from European in generally shucking out the white adductor muscle alone and selling it loose by the quart, rather than using the roe and the whole animal. Serving them au gratin on buttered toast under bechamel and browned crumbs is the standard French treatment of the period, and a close cousin to the scalloped oysters that filled the same slot on American menus.