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Scallops, Provencale
Plunge one and a half pounds fresh scallops into half pint lightly salted boiling water for two minutes. Drain on a sieve, keeping the liquor. Finely chop two small, sound shallots, one small onion, and lightly brown in a saucepan with one ounce butter for two minutes. Add three tablespoons flour and briskly stir; moisten with all the liquor of the scallops and briskly whisk for a minute. Season with a saltspoon cayenne pepper and one saltspoon grated nutmeg; whisk again, then add the scallops, mix a little and boil for five minutes; add a teaspoon chopped parsley and half clove very finely chopped garlic; mix well, then dilute two egg yolks in a tablespoon cold milk, add it to the preparation, gently mix and heat without boiling for three minutes. Pour the scallops, etc., into a large baking dish; sprinkle two tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese over; set in a hot oven and bake for five minutes, or until a nice golden colour. Remove and serve with six thin slices French bread, toasted.
A gratin of scallops in a velouté enriched with egg yolk — essentially coquilles Saint-Jacques under another name. Most of the modern adjustments concern heat: the scallops are cooked three separate times here, and only the first is really needed.
- The hinge: scallop timingThe two-minute blanch already cooks them through. Boiling them a further five minutes in the sauce, then baking, turns them to rubber. Blanch, set the scallops aside, build and cook out the sauce on its own, and fold them back in only at the finish.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is usually reckoned at a quarter teaspoon, though some sources give an eighth. A quarter teaspoon of cayenne in this quantity of sauce is assertive but not unreasonable; a quarter teaspoon of grated nutmeg will read as strong to a modern palate — an eighth is plenty.
- Half pint of liquor, three tablespoons of flourThat is a very stiff roux ratio, and the scallops give up little extra moisture. Expect something closer to a paste than a sauce unless you loosen it with milk or cream to a coating consistency before the yolks go in.
- The yolk liaison"Heat without boiling" is literal — the yolks will curdle above roughly 180F. Temper them with a ladle of the hot sauce first, then return the lot to low heat and stir until it thickens slightly.
- Hot ovenRead as 425–450F. Five minutes at that heat browns Parmesan on a shallow dish; if the mixture has cooled, a broiler set close does the job faster and with less risk of the sauce splitting.
- Dish and portionsOne large baking dish is specified, but the six slices of toast suggest six servings. A pound and a half of scallops divides comfortably into six small gratin dishes or scallop shells, which brown better than one deep dish.
- Shallots and garlicHalf a clove of garlic added at the end, raw into hot sauce, is the whole Provençal claim of the dish. Chop it as finely as the recipe insists — it is meant to perfume, not to bite.
- Scallops todayBuy dry-packed scallops if you can. Wet-packed ones are treated with a phosphate solution, shed a great deal of water, and will thin the sauce further while refusing to brown.
Alexander Filippini, long of Delmonico's in New York, compiled The International Cook Book around a survey of national styles, and "Provençale" here is doing light duty: no tomato, no olive oil, just shallot, garlic and parsley standing in for the south of France while the technique — blanch, velouté, egg-yolk liaison, cheese gratin — is straight Parisian restaurant practice. The dish is a near cousin of coquilles Saint-Jacques, generally traced to the scallop shell carried by pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela, whose deep half has served as a baking vessel for so long that the shape is now sold in ceramic. Parmesan rather than Gruyère on a French gratin marks the book's era and audience.