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.

This is all Amy’s fault.

From the moment I laid eyes on this, I knew I had to try this recipe. How could I not? See, my favorite food in the world next to cheese has got to be potatoes in any form, and when I saw those crisp, delicious looking beauties, I developed a craving for fries that just would not go away. My first thought was to make steak frites, but since we’ve been going so heavy on the meat lately, I decided on moules frites as a lighter option.

I followed the recipe for the fries pretty closely, substituting olive oil for canola because we didn’t have any on hand, and dividing the potatoes over two half-sheet pans. One pan (the one with more wear on it) turned out perfectly crisp, beautiful fries and the other… well, not so much. Those fries stuck to the bottom of the pan, to the sides of the pan, to each other, to anything they could stick to. They were pretty mangled and fugly after I finally turned them all, but I pressed on.

I ended up leaving the fries in the oven for an extra 10 minutes (for a total cooking time of one hour), and when I pulled them out, I had one tray of perfect specimens, and a second tray of perfectly cooked fries that were not going to win any beauty contests, but were just as tasty as their more attractive brethren.

The garlicky topping, I must say, is genius. If you make these fries, do not skip that step. And if you like fries, do try this recipe, because even though my go at them wasn’t all smooth sailing, they were worth the frustration, and I definitely plan to make them again and again.

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.

As I feared might happen, I caught Mike’s cold. It hit me hard on the commute home yesterday, and by the time I got home I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get it together to make dinner. But we had clams, fresh beautiful local littlenecks, and they wouldn’t keep, so when Mike got home we worked on dinner together.

This is my adaptation of a recipe I found on epicurious.com. We both love the combination of pork and clams, and I am always looking for new ways to prepare them together. This recipe was a breeze to put together, used just one pot, and had us both happily slurping up every last bit of the savory broth from our bowls.

Clams with Hot Italian Sausage and Fennel
(adapted from a recipe in Cooking Light via epicurious.com)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large fennel bulb, cored and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons chopped fennel fronds
Kosher salt
1/2 pound hot Italian sausage, removed from casings and crumbled
2 teaspoons crushed fennel seeds
1 tablespoon tomato paste
8 oz. white wine
2 dozen small clams (we used littlenecks, but you can substitute Manilas or other small clams)

Heat the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot with a lid. Add the sliced fennel, salt, sausage and fennel seeds and sauté until sausage is brown and fennel is tender, about 10 minutes. Make a hot spot and add the tomato paste, allowing to cook for a couple of minutes before stirring it through. Add the wine and bring to boil. Add the clams and half of the fennel fronds, cover the pot and cook over medium heat until the clams open, about 5-10 minutes. Spoon into deep bowls, discarding any unopened clams, and sprinkle additional fennel fronds on top. Serve with toasted crusty bread to soak up the broth.

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.