Thought for Food

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Grilled Scallops with Garlic Butter

So, what is there to say about scallops? You heard in my last post that I was well chuffed to get them at an affordable price. But I'm not sure I expressed just how happy I was. I was very, very happy. I know, I've only recently cooked scallops, but when I bought them I was not thinking clearly and only got five for each of us. And that was definitely not enough. They were gone before we knew it and left us only wanting more. Much more.
Lofty and I both love scallops. We used to eat them quite regularly when were living in Los Angeles. - Hmm, maybe I should try to get my Blogger profile sorted out to reflect the many places I have called home... Yes, definitely a project for the near future. - But then we moved to Munich where they are virtually unaffordable for ordinary people. This is not surprising; the city is about as far away from the sea as you can get and therefore has never developed a tradition of cooking and eating seafood. I remember that, when I was a kid, it was quite common that people thought fish was so disgusting they did not even try it to see if they liked it. Over the years fish has become more popular, especially that bright orange, greasy crap that the Norwegians pile off on German Aldi customers as smoked salmon. But a certain air is still attached to what has become known as Edelfisch, which could be roughly translated as precious/noble fish. Cod, fresh tuna, hake and the like as well as shellfish fall into this category, which is associated with wealth, class and style. You will find people who eat oysters just to be seen doing it, hosts serving baked cod just to talk about how much they paid for it and others refusing to touch either for fear of being labelled a snob. It's really rather sad.
In any case, we did not eat scallops in Munich. Nor did we find any in Cape Town or Prague, where we lived during the following years. When we first came to Dublin we were delighted to see scallops back on the menus of even ordinary Chinese takeouts. I ordered them a few times, but obviously chopped up and served in a strongly flavoured sauce they do not taste the same as grilled freshly and served with nothing but a bit of garlic, lemon and some crusty bread. This was what we had been craving, this is what I saw before my inner eye when I was cleaning the scallops, and this is what I had in the back of my head when looking at and judging possible recipes. So you can imagine that it didn't take much deciding when I found a recipe in one of my cookbooks for exactly that: Grilled scallops in garlic butter.

For the scallops:
6 tbsp olive oil
20 big scallops (with or without roes, that is entirely up to you)
70 to 80 g good quality butter (avoid the mass-produced watery stuff and invest in a good bit of Irish butter, it's well worth it)
8 to 10 cloves of garlic (depending on the size and your preference), finely chopped
salt to taste
lemon wedges to serve
To serve:
4 handfuls of baby spinach
a pinch of salt
4 slices of ciabatta or baguette
olive oil for brushing the bread

Preheat a grill or griddle pan. Brush the bread with a coat of olive oil and toast in the oven or pan until golden brown and crunchy, about 3 to 4 minutes.
Cook the spinach in a large saucepan over medium low heat. Do not add anything, except maybe a drop of water if the spinach appears to be drying out rather than cooking. Normally, the water left on the leaves after washing is enough to steam the spinach. Gently cook the spinach in its own juice until collapsed and tender, about 3 to 4 minutes.
In the meantime, heat the olive oil in two shallow frying pans (use two unless you've got a huge one; the scallops need a bit of space or they will steam rather than fry) until it begins to sizzle. Season the scallops with salt and quickly add them to the oil. Be careful, they may splash. Do not move them for at least a minute, during which time they will form a nice, sticky crust on the underside. Turn the scallops and continue frying until the other side has browned and they are cooked just through, about 2 minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside in a warm place.
Add the butter to the pans. (Obviously, you don't need to do this in two pans anymore, but I preferred to, just to make sure I deglazed the yummy juices the scallops had released.) It should melt immediately. When it begins to foam, add the garlic. Swirl the mixture around the pan to deglaze the brown crust at the bottom and briefly cook the garlic.
Arrange the spinach in the middle of two plates, top with the scallops and drizzle with garlic butter. Serve with the toasted bread and lemon wedges.

Just in case you wondered why I am suddenly using a cookbook to guide me through such a simple procedure as grilling scallops, let me explain. Although I had cooked them before, I felt quite insecure doing them as a stand-alone dinner. Several websites had warned that it is easy to overcook them, in which case they go tough. I didn't want to mess up a dinner that I had hyped up in my head and thus spoil the whole day (as I said, my moods change easily). So decided to rely on the expertise of an experienced chef to make the perfect dinner. This choice proved to be good. The most important thing with this recipe is the temperature. Get the pans nice and hot so the scallops brown quickly with out overcooking. And make sure they have room to let the water evaporate. If you follow these two rules, you can't really go wrong.

Christine at 9:28 pm

0comments

0 Comments

Post a Comment