Aaah, the scallop. That noble, yet accessible, crustacean core. Easy to sear, season, plate, and enjoy, it’s a quick treat on the plate, a buttery, herbal, taste of the wide ocean.

You had the scallop appetizer at my place, listening to the satisfying crack of its sear under your knife before digging your teeth into a whole new world of happy. Here’s the secret – it’s insanely easy to make at home. If, and that’s important, a few simple rules are followed.

Spciy Scallops by Mochiland

If your scallops taste bland and not at all buttery, if they seem rubbery, it might not your problem. We don’t spend much time on this appetizer when you order it, but a little bit of work goes into it ahead of time. Next time you’re making this delectable and quick treat at home, try the following…

1. We use dry scallops, you might be using “wet” scallops – purveyors tend to use this dirty trick to coax more money from their unsuspecting customers. “Wet” scallops are stored and sold in a solution of sodium tripolyphosphate which is used both as a preservative and a “plumping” agent.  Scallops suspended in STP take on water, thereby “plumping” up and appearing larger and heavier. Since scallops are generally sold by weight, this is a popular way to make more money on less product.

The water inside the scallop will evaporate on cooking, making browning much harder, and giving the crustacean a bland, fishy, taste and unappealing texture.

Buy dry scallops (Atlantic scallops are a very sustainable seafood, Pacific scallops are now on the rebound after having been over-dredged for a few years). When given a chance, always opt for “diver” scallops. The most popular means of harvesting these mollusks is dredging a net along the ocean floor, which can damage the outer shells and impart unwanted flavors early. Damaged scallops also release stress hormones and tense their abductor muscle (which you will ultimately eat), leading to a rubbery mouth feel.

Wet scallops tend to be bright white and bland in color, mushy to the touch. Dry scallops are ivory in color and springy.

If wet scallops are all you can get, read on. There’s a rescue at hand.

1a. Brine - the chemical flavor of wet scallops is a bigger turn-off than most of the other issues which we can and will work around in the next tips. If you have nothing else to turn to, make a 50:25:25 solution of lemon or lime juice, apple cider vinegar, and water. Add 8 tbsp salt per quart. Brine your scallops for at least one hour. This won’t remove the STP inside the scallop but will effectively mask the taste by imparting a counter-flavor. Both the STP and the acid taste should balance each other, becoming subtle notes that aren’t really in the way of a good feast.

Still, dry scallops are the way to go.

2. Season well - seasoning your scallop is a science all in itself. Luckily we have a few decades of experience with the beast and can just stand on the shoulders of greater cooks. The two downfalls of scallop seasoning are “too soon” and “not enough”. Seasoning your scallops too soon will “burn” the surface. creating a rubbery layer. Seasoning not enough – well, you know what they say about seasoning: It’s like a bass player. No one notices you when you’re around, but go missing or off-beat for a second, and everyone hates the song.

I am using a dry seasoning containing dried and blitzed scallop roe. Since it’s highly unlikely you’ll get access to in-shell diver scallops, the seasoning below doesn’t contain it. Holler if you do, and I’ll update the mix for you.

1 part brown sugar

2 parts fine salt (no need to buy it, just crush your kosher salt in a mortar)

1 part paprika

1/2 part cayenne

1/4 part nutmeg

Instead of sprinkling the mix onto the scallop, layer a plate with the seasoning, then place the scallop on it. Its own weight will compact the seasoning layer slightly, pushing it into the cut’s natural cracks and crevices.

3. Sear in a mixture of butter and oil – butter has too low a smoke point to be an efficient searing agent. Oil lacks the browning abilities of butter. So we go with a 50:50 mix. Experts are torn on the question whether this actually raises the smoke point, but I tend to go with This’ and Sacrad’s explanation. Combining the two does not actually raise the smoke point of butter, but pushes a thin layer of oil underneath the milk solids in the pan, preventing early burning and the chain reaction which then leads to unsightly, burned tasting, oil.

4. Walk away – most people seem to have this natural drive to sear-and-flip. Scallops hate to be seared and flipped, as do most meats. Place your scallop into a pan at medium-high heat and walk away. Unless you are using a non-stick pan (and there’s nothing wrong with that, we’re not building a sauce. If we were, which is a great thing to do, non-stick would be a no-no), there’s a simple indicator when it’s time to flip the crustacean. Try lifting it (with your fingers, don’t ruin it by using tools) gently. If the sear still clings to the pan, it’s not yet time. Usually that’s around 2 minutes in for most scallops.

After flipping, add one tbsp of butter to the pan. Baste the scallop evenly with hot butter unless done. You’ll get a pretty good idea of what a done scallop feels like, keep squeezing and observing. Another reason not to use tongs.

5. Walk away, again – scallops, like most exercised muscles, benefit from a brief rest after being subjected to high heats. Place your scallop on a cooling rack for three to four minutes before plating and serving.

6. Make a great sauce – lemon wedges are soooooo 80′s. Beurre blanc might excite the French, but let’s be honest – the last time a French cook did anything worthy of mention they robbed him of the “Chef of the Century” award and gave it to Joël Robuchon. Thusly proven taste-impaired, why should we trust them about other things?

Instead, let’s look west to Spain and Portugal, home of some of the best scallop dishes I ever ate. We’ll make our “red ginger” sauce, which is basically a coulis.

Simply combine by equal weight tomatoes (seeded and concassed, which is a fancy way of saying “remove skin and seeds, then slice[1] into cubes) and red peppers. Add finely grated ginger. I go with about 1tbsp per tomato, season to taste though, not every ginger is created equal. Add sugar and salt to taste, then blitz with a stick blender until smooth.

Add into sauce pan and reduce until 2/3 of the water content is gone. At the last second add 1/2 tbsp of butter per 2 tbsp of coulis (which is about as much as you should put on your plate), incorporate well, and garnish onto plate. Add some finely chopped[1] basil, serve with warm bread. Voila.

See. Making great tasting scallops isn’t that hard, it’s cheap to boot, and it’s one heck of a dinner starter.

Footnote:

[1] Since I had this conversation last week, with three people – all of which have the education to know but disagreed, here’s how food writing should treat the different ways to part things in the kitchen:

1. Slicing – whenever a smooth motion of the blade creates one or more parts. The final outcome is not as important as the movement of the tool. Regardless of audience, food writing is not prose, it is trade writing. Trade writing should be exact. Slicing requires the use of a guiding knuckle against which the blade rests.
2. Chopping – a heavy, inexact, downward motion of the blade. “Inexact” in this context seems to be counter-intuitive since good cooks will chop with almost surgical precision. It is however (unlike the slice) not guided by the guiding knuckle of the offhand, and therefore considered less precise.

Large Dice, Batonnet, Medium Dice, Allumette, Small Dice, Julienne, Brunoise, Fine Julienne, Fine Brunoise, and Chunks are sliced. Fine Chop, Chop, and meat cuts are chopped.