Scallops et al.
I’ve begun somewhat of a weekly tradition of making a gourmet-ish meal on Saturday afternoons. I’ve mentioned how I like to take pictures of food before, so I figured this would be a good time to illustrate my most recent meal.
We couldn’t come up with anything in particular to make for dinner, so we wandered into Williams Sonoma for some ideas. After tasting some of their new flavored oils, I was able to to together a rough menu. I ended up buying a bottle of the Olivier “Parmesan” oil (it was betwen that and their pesto one) and headed home.
My idea was bacon-wrapped scallops, buttered angel hair pasta and my signature bruschetta. Ross liked the rice cream at Kringla Bakeri og Cafe at Epcot’s World Showcase, that we decided to make the recipe from my Disney World recipe book. I tasked him with this particular part of dinner.
While I seemingly enjoyed a bottle of Kunin Pape Star 2004 with dinner, the image above is incorrect. I actually just had that while making the food. It was recommended to me by the vibrant lady who has made quite a few recommendations for me at Steves Wine Market. I’d link to the wine’s site itself, but Kunin doesn’t even list the 2004 Pape Star yet. To me, the wine tasted and smelled like brie cheese (amongst other things). I was concerned that this actually indicated it was corked, but it was still drinkable so that probably was not the case. A review of the 2003 version of this indicates that smell was most likely leather. Beats me. If you’re wondering, the bottle was $21.
This meal was actually comprised of trips to three stores: Williams Sonoma, Copps and Brenans. Copps was for bread, mushrooms and bacon, while Brennans was for scallops and some additional wine.
The first thing to do was prep the bread for toasting. I’m a big fan of mice en place as it helps me get everything onto a plate at the same time. I’ve had good luck with it, even if my ability to strictly adhere to it wavers.
The bread was sliced, cut in half and then coated with a bit of that new parmesan oil. It was then set aside while I prepped a bowl of mushrooms and wrapped the scallops.
My bruschetta has differing ingredients, depending on how bad I want to be for me. This time it was just fresh (well, as fresh as Belgioso’s is) mozzarella and mushrooms. The mushrooms I slice, add to a hot pan with olive oil, and toss in some minced garlic and crushed red pepper flakes. After cooking a bit I throw in some kosher salt and let them finish cooking. Because I added the salt, these needed some straining to get the extra water off.
Meanwhile, I started to prep my scallops. I had gotten 7 of them from Brennan’s for $21/lb (it was about $17 worth of scallops). I wrapped each 1.5″ scallop in a strip of bacon and stuck a toothpick through it. A little salt, pepper and a tiny bit of sugar coated each side. I had heard somewhere that sugaring the scallop helped it brown, and it seemed to work well for the first time trying it.
This is where timing got tricky. The scallops had to cook, cheese on the already toasted bread had to melt and the pasta needed to cook all at the same time. This was all while monitoring Ross’ efforts at making dessert (he might have had some strawberry sauce reduce too far and turn into a high school science experiment involving overheated sugar turning to carbon). While all this was going on, I melted a good half stick of butter, added some olive oil and threw in some garlic. I set that aside, with a palmful of pepper flakes and moved on to the scallops.
To cook the scallops I used my 8″ All-Clad fry pan (I’d love a decent All-Clad set if you want to spring the $500) and heated it close to smoking. I tossed in a little olive oil and threw in half the scallops. They only took a minute or two on each side, and then some extra for browning the bacon. I kept the first half warm in the oven with the bruschetta in the meantime.
Ross got out the wine, a 2005 Parri Estate viongier chardonney. I had a great viognier from the Veritable Quandary, so this was part of my continued interest in that type of wine. I’m no expert, but it was very drinkable.
All in all it turned out pretty good. It’s too bad both of us had a sizeable amount of samples from stores and tastings of what we were preparing as it was made to be decently sated by the time we sat down. I think we finished about 2/3 a piece, but at least the scallops were gone, and those are what cost the most.
As for dessert, it came out very similar to what one would get at Akershus or Kringla. The strawberry sauce was passable, and had a bit of a burnt caramel taste to it that some might like. Rice cream is sweet, but not overly sweet and this matched the sweetness of how it was prepared in Florida. I fully plan to finish the remaining portion in my fridge.
