Last Night’s Dinner

I’m not sure but I think the excessive heat we’ve had the last two days has impaired my ability to successfully put a meal together. I didn’t even attempt it on Monday night (we ordered a pizza), but since Mike had installed the air conditioner, I figured I’d give it a shot last night. After all, we had a package of Bomster Scallops thawed in the fridge, and I was anxious to see what the fuss is all about. I figured they’d be a good option for a quick dinner anyway, as scallops really take just minutes to cook, and they wouldn’t heat up the kitchen too much.

I decided rather than searing the scallops, I’d give them a brief soak in buttermilk before coating them in cornmeal. The first problem I encountered is that our buttermilk had frozen in the back of the fridge (as did our crème fraiche, which is why the lemon-savory cream I planned to serve with the scallops didn’t materialize – strike two).

I pressed forward, figuring the buttermilk slush would re-liquefy soon enough (it did). But then I used the wrong pan. Now, you all know how much I love our cast iron skillet, and I use it for darn near everything, but the thing just got too nuclear hot for these scallops – my first batch stuck to the pan, leaving charred cornmeal in the bottom, the scallops still raw.

I quickly grabbed our nonstick pan and got that heating for the next batch, and it worked better, though the crust itself was pretty unsuccessful – the scallops gave off so much liquid after I pulled them out of the pan that the crust was soggy by the time I plated. They were tasty, but not at all what I had intended.

I was more successful with the accompaniments – black rice cooked with shallot and lots of fresh summer savory (already chopped for the lemon-savory cream that was not to be), and blanched shaved asparagus, all dressed with a healthy squeeze of lemon juice. It was light and fresh tasting, not to mention lovely to look at, and I’ll likely revisit the combination in the future. I’m betting it would be great with a poached egg on top.

I wouldn’t call this meal a complete disaster, but it was disappointing. The scallops themselves were, as advertised, really delicious, and I look forward to picking up more at the farmers’ market this weekend and giving them another go next week. But I’ll skip the cornmeal crust.

(On an unrelated note, check out Mike’s first contribution to the Tales of the Cocktail blog, up today.)

Seared Nantucket Bay scallops, cauliflower puree and parsley oil

It has been quite a week.

November is the season for Nantucket Bay scallops, and when I was putting together my last grocery order, I made sure to snatch some up. These sweet little gems are about midway between a regular bay scallop and a sea scallop in size, and they’re perfect for simple, clean-flavored preparations like this pasta dish. My ex-husband used to make something similar (a recipe ganked from some food magazine I’ve long forgotten), and I’ve updated it by adding two of my favorite flavor boosters – chile flakes and fresh lemon zest. This dish is bright and tasty, comes together in literally minutes, and allows the delicious flavor of the scallops to shine.

Cappellini with Nantucket Bay Scallops

1-2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
Kosher salt
1/2 cup dry white wine
Red chile flakes to taste
1/2 lb. Nantucket Bay scallops (or sea scallops, halved or quartered if large)
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley, plus more for garnish
3/4 lb. cappellini (angel hair) pasta
Lemon zest
Toasted breadcrumbs

Get a large pot of salted water boiling for the pasta.

Warm olive oil in a wide skillet and add garlic cloves and salt. Cook over medium heat until the garlic is fragrant and beginning to turn golden. Add the wine and chile flakes and let cook for a moment before adding the scallops. Season them with a bit more salt and continue cooking for about 3-4 minutes, until the scallops are just cooked through.

Add the cappellini to the boiling pasta water and cook about 3 minutes. Drain and place into a warmed serving bowl.

Stir the 1/4 cup of parsley into the scallops and remove them from the heat. Pour the scallops and sauce over the pasta and toss gently. Divide between bowls or plates and top each serving with additional chopped parsley, grated lemon zest, and a sprinkling of toasted breadcrumbs.

We usually have wine with dinner, and when I’m planning out the pairings, the food usually comes first. But as I was putting together a grocery order last week and browsing the bottles available through Best Cellars, I was surprised to see a white wine listed among their “Big” selections. The bottle in question was a 2004 Oriel “Dylan” Russian River Valley Chardonnay, and while I’m not usually a fan of big Chardonnays, and the bottle was a bit more spendy than we usually go for weeknight dinners, the description of the wine had me intrigued. I added it to our cart and began thinking about building a meal around it.

I like pairing scallops with Chardonnay, so I decided on that as my protein – simply seared, with a little vermouth-enriched brown butter. The side was a bit more challenging; since scallops are so mild, I tend to match them with something more aggressively flavored or seasoned, but I didn’t want to make anything overpowering. As luck or serendipity would have it, I happened upon a few recipes for celery root remoulade over the weekend, and decided to go with a variation on that theme. I added fennel and apple to the mix, and ended up with a wonderful combination of crunchy, creamy, tart, sweet and tangy – a great foil for both the scallops and our delicious bottle of wine.

Celeriac, Fennel and Apple Remoulade

1 teaspoon kosher salt
Juice of one lemon
1 teaspoon extra-hot Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
4 oz. crème fraiche
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
1 not-too-tart green apple
1 small bulb fennel
1 small celery root (celeriac)

Place kosher salt in a bowl, add lemon juice and whisk until salt is dissolved. Add mustard, mayo, crème fraiche and tarragon, and whisk again until well combined.

Core the apple, slice into matchsticks and add to dressing. Core the fennel bulb and slice as thinly as possible. Peel celery root and slice into matchsticks. Blanch the fennel and celery root briefly in unsalted water. Remove the vegetables using a spider or slotted spoon and shock them in an ice bath. Drain them well, pat dry, and add to the dressing. Toss until the mixture is well-combined, cover, and chill before serving.

I’m a little frantic these days. My pre-party panic is in full effect, and I’m beginning to do prep for several party dishes when I get home from work in the evenings in addition to getting dinner on the table. Last night was a pretty heavy prep night, as I worked on about six and a half pounds of duck breasts for the little pulled duck sandwiches I’m serving Saturday. Since the oven was on anyway, I figured I’d take advantage of that and packet cook some scallops.

I’m a big fan of packet cooking. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it makes for minimal cleanup – important considerations when you’re pressed for time and juggling other things. For these scallop packets, I set two squares of foil next to each other on a baking sheet, and mounded a combination of fresh corn, halved heirloom cherry tomatoes and sliced scallions on the center of each. I placed five plump little sea scallops on top of the veggies, seasoned them with kosher salt, and drizzled about a tablespoon of white vermouth and a little olive oil over each before sealing them up. The sealed packets went into a 450 degree oven for 12 minutes and when they were done, I placed each one into a shallow bowl to catch any stray juices, opened them up and sprinkled a bit of shredded basil on top. This meal couldn’t have been simpler, and it was bursting with late-summer goodness.

I’ve been battling a pretty bad pain flare this week, the result of this oppressive heat as well as overdoing it a bit last weekend. I’ve spent most of my time off my feet, but I have summoned up the energy to put together quick dinners the last couple of nights.

Mike brought home some gorgeous bi-color sweet corn on Wednesday, which I cut off the cob and tossed with black beans, garlic scapes, zucchini, heirloom tomatoes and my chile-lime vinaigrette. I reserved a bit of that same vinaigrette to brush over fresh sea scallops before searing them in a hot pan and serving them on top of the corn salad.

On Thursday, I chunked up three big heirloom tomatoes, also from Wednesday’s greenmarket haul, and tossed them with minced Rocambole garlic, a generous amount of salt, some good olive oil and a big handful of green and opal basil from the garden, sliced into chiffonade. I let the tomato mixture marinate on the countertop for about an hour and then tossed it with hot cooked linguine and a mixture of grated Parmagiano Reggiano and Pecorino Romano cheeses.

Mike’s cooking tonight and I plan to take it easy this weekend. Hope you all enjoy whatever you have planned.

A quick dinner on a steamy night, prepared by my darling husband (who, by the way, shows up in the July/August issue of Imbibe - congratulations, love!). The green beans in the veg mix are the first batch from our little patch of Brooklyn garden, and man, were they good. There’s nothing like growing your own.

It has really been one of those weeks. We’ve had lots of stressful stuff going on, not the least of which is trying to find homes for our resident kittens, and the weather this week has been completely out of whack. The stress and weather have made my health problems flare up, and unfortunately, the meals I had sketched out for the week after our usual weekend food safari have ended up getting postponed or scrapped altogether.

Our intention was to skewer these dayboat scallops on some rosemary branches and grill them for dinner on Tuesday night. If you were in the New York Metro area on Tuesday night, you probably know why that didn’t happen - buckets and buckets of rain, not to mention temperatures more suited to mid-April than mid-June. It was great for the garden, not so great for my joints, and definitely not the kind of weather you want to linger outside in.

Nothing we had on hand was inspiring me, and I was bone tired anyway, so I tossed a salad, plated up some cured meats, cheeses and olives, and we had an indoor picnic. This is a fine meal in a pinch, but all of the good fresh ingredients we had in the fridge were haunting me. I didn’t want them to go bad before we could use them.

Tuesday was still chilly and overcast, but I was determined to do something with those scallops. I decided that if we couldn’t grill them, I’d sear them indoors with herbs and a little tomato butter. The chill in the air proved to be a plus as far as our side dish went. I sliced up some baby fennel and greenhouse-grown red bell peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, and a variety of tomatoes and layered them in a lightly-oiled baking dish, seasoning each layer with a generous sprinkling of salt and Herbes de Provence. I splashed about a quarter cup of white vermouth over the veggies, sprinkled some dry breadcrumbs on top, and added a light drizzle of olive oil, then baked the veggies in a 400 degree oven for about half an hour.

I was incredibly pleased with the texture of the vegetables - they were soft but not mushy, and their flavors were sweet and concentrated, accented nicely by the aromatic herbs. As well as we liked this as a side dish, I think it would also make for a great meatless entree.

This was light, quick and super easy. I wrapped some sea scallops Mike brought home from the Greenmarket with thin strips of prosciutto and seared them for a couple of minutes a side in a nonstick pan with a tiny bit of olive oil. I removed the scallops and poured my basic lemon vinaigrette into the pan to deglaze it and warm it up a bit, then poured it over a salad of red oak lettuce, pea shoots, chopped tarragon, fresh peas and haricots verts. The salad was tossed and plated, and I placed the scallops on top. Delicious.

I love Asian flavors, but I don’t use them in my cooking as often as I’d like to. I wanted to do something a little different with the scallops I had lined up for dinner, so it seemed like a good opportunity to play with some of those underused containers and bottles of Asian condiments we have in the kitchen.

I had a couple of bundles of soba noodles in the pantry, so I decided to make a sort of warm soba noodle salad to go with the scallops. I set a pot of water to boil while I sliced a couple of carrots into matchsticks. I’m a big fan of watercress - it has a great peppery bite and it’s loaded with nutrients. We had a bunch in the crisper, so I cleaned and trimmed it and decided to add that to the noodles as well.

I whisked up a dressing of sorts, dissolving a couple of heaping teaspoons of white miso paste into the juice of one lime, a couple of hefty splashes each of rice wine vinegar, mirin and tamari, and a squirt of Sriracha. I added about a quarter cup of toasted sesame oil to that and whisked it all together. I brushed a little bit of the dressing onto our scallops (8 big ones, about half a pound), and reserved the rest for the noodles.

I added the carrot matchsticks to the boiling water with a couple of pinches of salt and let them begin to cook. The soba noodles went in next, and I allowed them to cook with the carrots just until the noodles were soft and pliable. I turned off the heat, drained the noodles and carrots, placed them back into the dry pot and added the reserved dressing and the watercress, gently tossing everything through.

The scallops were even simpler - I placed them into a hot saute pan for about two minutes on the first side, then flipped them and cooked them for an additional minute. The scallops and udon went onto plates and I garnished them with a little bit of fresh mint (my first thought was to garnish with black sesame seeds, but they were buried in the far recesses of the cupboard). I was really pleased with how this turned out - the dressing/marinade had a nice blend of sweet-sour-salty flavors which was delicious on both the scallops and the noodles. This will definitely be a great light meal to keep in mind for busy weeknight meals.