No. 2354

Shells of Scallops, Parisian Style

Coquilles de Petoncles a la Parisienne

Open seven or eight large scallop shells; detach the meats as well as the white and red milts, and poach them in a little white wine; drain and cut them into dice pieces; keep this salpicon on one side. Fry in butter, chopped up onions and shallots; add raw mushrooms cut in dice shape and cook until their moisture is evaporated, then add the prepared salpicon five or six minutes later; season and thicken with a good bechame! sauce (No. 409) reduced when ready to use. Boil once more for a few minutes without ceasing to stir; it should be quite consistent, and finish it away from the fire with a pinch of cayenne pepper and a piece of fresh lobster butter (No. 580). Lift this stew up with a spoon, and with it fill the shells; cover the preparation with bread-crumbs, brush over with meited butter, and bake for ten minutes in a moderate oven. Dress the shells as soon as they are removed from the fire.

← No. 2353 Oysters in Their Shells with Fried Bread Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2355 Shells of Spinal Marrow or Brains →

For the Modern Kitchen

A gratin of diced scallop, mushroom and shallot bound with a tight béchamel, baked in the shells. Ranhofer assumes you are shucking live scallops, which changes how you handle the timing.

The hinge: poach brieflyThe scallops are cooked twice more after poaching — once in the sauce, once in the oven. Give them no more than a minute in the simmering white wine, just until opaque at the edge, or the finished gratin will be rubbery.
Pétoncles and "milts"Pétoncle usually denotes a scallop smaller than the coquille Saint-Jacques, nearer what is sold as a bay scallop — though Ranhofer here calls for large shells, so read it as scallops in the shell generally. The "white and red milts" are the pale and orange reproductive parts, commonly left attached in Europe but usually trimmed off in American markets; if you cannot get scallops in the shell, use the muscle and increase the quantity slightly.
SalpiconA salpicon is nothing more than ingredients cut into small even dice and held aside to be bound in sauce later. Cut everything about a quarter inch so the filling mounds on a spoon.
Béchamel, reducedHis No. 409 is a milk-based white sauce. Reduce it until it coats a spoon heavily and clings — a thin sauce will boil out of the shells in the oven. It should be nearly as thick as a croquette binding.
Lobster butterNo. 580 is butter pounded with lobster shells and coral, then strained. If you have no lobster shells, a spoonful of good shellfish stock reduced to a glaze whisked into plain butter gives a similar note; leaving it out costs the dish its color and depth but not its structure.
OvenA moderate oven is conventionally reckoned at roughly 350-375F, and ten minutes should be enough to heat through and set the crumbs. If the tops are pale, finish under the broiler for a minute rather than extending the bake.
Shells and substitutesScrub and boil the shells before filling. Small gratin dishes or ramekins of about half a cup work equally well; set them on a sheet pan since real shells rock.
YieldSeven or eight shells, which is a first course for four or a light main for three.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and the recipe is characteristic of the book's method: a cooked filling, a named mother sauce cross-referenced by number, a compound butter, and a crumb gratin. "À la Parisienne" in this period is often said to have served as a loose label for a refined, creamy, restaurant treatment rather than any fixed formula, though in classical nomenclature it also carried more specific garnish meanings. Serving shellfish back in its own shell was standard for coquilles — the shell was the vessel, the portion control and the presentation all at once, which is why the coquille Saint-Jacques that most people know today still arrives that way. The instruction to keep the roe and coral marks the recipe as continental in habit; American markets are generally said to have shucked scallops at sea and sold the muscle alone, a divergence that may already have been underway when Ranhofer was writing.