No. 1079

St. Jacques Shells, Parisian Style—Large Species of Scallops

Coquilles St. Jacques a la Parisienne--Grands Petoncles

Open eight or ten large, fresh St. Jacques shells (Fig. 277--large species of scallops), detach the meats, also the white and red milts, poach with a little white wine, drain and cut them into dice pieces; keep this salpicon aside. Fry some chopped onions and shallots in butter, add raw mushrooms cut in small squares and let cook until they have reduced their moisture, then put in the prepared salpicon five or six minutes later. Season the stew, thickening with freshly reduced bechamel (No. 409), boil again for a few moments without ceasing to stir; it should now be quite consistent; finish off of the fire with a dash of cayenne pepper, a piece of fresh butter and a piece of red butter (No. 580). Take the stew up with a spoon and fill the shells, bestrew the preparation with bread-crumbs, sprinkled over with melted butter and then bake in a moderate oven for ten minutes, take out and dress.

SHRIMPS (Crevettes de Mer).

A small crustacean with a long body, the tail is about as long as the body itself. The two first feet end in a claw shape; only after being cooked or dipped in alcohol does its meat turn red.

← No. 1078 Scallops on Toast, Baked Scallops No. 1080 Fried Shrimps →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a kitchen that buys scallops live in the shell and has béchamel and compound butters already made. Everything else here is straightforward, but the timings are the trap.

The hinge: barely poachThe scallop meat and roe go into white wine only long enough to firm and turn opaque; note that the recipe poaches them whole and dices them afterwards, so this is a brief poach, not a simmer. They cook a second time in the sauce and a third under the crumbs; overshoot at the start and the finished shells are rubbery.
"White and red milts"These are the roe sacs — the creamy male milt and the coral-orange female roe attached to the muscle. Scallops sold in Europe and the UK often still have them; in the United States you will almost certainly be handed shucked muscles only, in which case simply use more scallop and accept a paler filling.
Buying whole scallopsEight to ten large scallops in the shell is roughly 1 to 1 1/4 lb of shucked meat. Ask a fishmonger to reserve the cleaned shells for you, or use ovenproof gratin dishes or the ceramic shells sold for the purpose.
Béchamel No. 409An ordinary béchamel, reduced until thick enough to hold the diced scallop in a mound on a spoon. Use only enough to bind — this is a salpicon lightly sauced, not scallops in cream sauce.
"Red butter" No. 580A compound butter coloured and flavoured with lobster or crayfish coral and shell. If you are not making it, lobster or shrimp butter, or in a pinch butter worked with a little sweet paprika and tomato paste, gives the colour Ranhofer wanted. It is finish, not structure, so keep it off the heat.
Moderate ovenThe book gives no temperature; "moderate" is usually read today as around 350F. Ten minutes is enough to heat the filling through and set the crumbs; if the tops are still pale, finish under a hot broiler for a minute rather than leaving them in longer.
Mushroom moistureThe instruction to cook the mushrooms until they have given up their liquid is not decorative. Wet mushrooms thin the béchamel and the filling will weep in the shell.
YieldEight to ten filled shells — a first course for four to five people, or a light lunch for three with bread and salad.

A Little History

The name commemorates St. James the Greater, whose shrine at Santiago de Compostela sent pilgrims home wearing a scallop shell as a badge; the shell became the saint's emblem and the French word for the animal, coquille Saint-Jacques, still carries it. Serving a bound salpicon of shellfish back in its own shell under buttered crumbs turns a cheap bivalve into a portioned, gratinéed course that arrives at the table in its own dish. Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894, treats the grands pétoncles as large enough that the meat and roe must be diced. His French training shows in the cross-references: the dish is really an assembly of three preparations from elsewhere in the book, which is how professional kitchens of the period were organised.