Sear Delight!
I love shellfish, but don’t cook it very often at home. Recently I had the chance to indulge, and made myself a lovely dish of seared scallops with an Asian-inspired cucumber salad for this past week’s Berkshire Eagle column.
I’M FEELING SHELLFISH
by Elizabeth Baer
If you read a lot of cookbooks like I do, sometimes you find themes running through them. Plenty of them have a designated topic, such as desserts, or a certain cuisine from a certain part of the world. Often, those written by restaurant chefs contain recipes that themselves contain sub-recipes, making your average home cook less likely to cook from the book, as wonderful as the recipes and the books themselves may be.
On the other hand, when I read a cookbook geared toward a wider range of people, offering a full range of types of dishes, certain ideas crop up time after time. There’s the quick and easy; the long and slow for a day with weather that keeps you inside; and there’s the singular pleasure when eating on your own. To be fair, there are plenty of people who live alone, who need to cook like this all the time. For many others, a night at home alone allows for a special treat that others in your household don’t like or can’t eat. One I remember in particular was an author who loved to make herself just a baked sweet potato when she found herself at home on her own.
Not too long ago my husband, Hank, had a dinner meeting. As I began daydreaming about what I might make myself for dinner, I excitedly landed on doing something with shellfish. Hank is allergic to shellfish, but not so much so that he can’t be near it. He quite happily and patiently sits with me when we’re Maine as I devour a whole lobster methodically, bit by bit, but he cannot consume it himself. For this reason, I rarely cook shellfish because it would involve making two separate dinners. On this night, however, I treated myself to some scallops, and added an Asian-inspired cucumber salad to go with it. I’ve written up the recipe here to serve two, but I know full well it works perfectly fine halved for just one!
SEARED SCALLOPS WITH CUCUMBER SALAD
Serves 2, can be halved or doubled
INGREDIENTS:
1 European cucumber
½ medium red bell pepper
1-2 scallions
8-10 springs of cilantro, leaves only
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon white miso paste
1 teaspoon honey
½ teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
¼ teaspoon soy sauce
Freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon sesame oil
4 tablespoons neutral oil, such as canola, divided
10 large scallops
A couple pinches kosher salt
DIRECTIONS:
Make strands from the European cucumber. Cut the cucumber crosswise into three pieces. If you have a vegetable peeler that also makes strands, use that all around until you reach the seeds, letting the strands fall into a bowl and discarding the seeds in the center. If not, cut each of the three pieces lengthwise down the middle. Use a small spoon to scrape the seeds out and discard. Place the pieces flat edges down on a cutting board and carefully cut lengthwise into thin strips. Put the strips into a bowl.
Cut the pepper in half from top to bottom, and remove the stem, seeds, and ribs from the pepper. It can be helpful to remove the top and bottom as well, but it’s not necessary. Cut into thin strips and add to the cucumber. Cut the white and light green parts of the scallion(s) into rounds, or, if you want to continue the idea of long strands, remove the dark green parts and leave the root(s) intact while cutting carefully down the length of the scallion(s) to make thin strips, then remove the root end(s). Add the scallion and the cilantro leaves to the bowl with the cucumber.
In a small bowl or measuring cup whisk together the lime juice, miso, honey, ginger, soy sauce, and fresh ground black pepper. Add the sesame oil and 2 tablespoons of neutral oil, and whisk again. Taste and adjust flavors as desired. Add to the cucumber mixture and toss to coat everything.
Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons neutral oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high to high heat until very hot. While the oil is heating, pat the scallops dry and season on both sides with salt and pepper. Place the scallops flatly into the pan leaving plenty of space between so they don’t begin to steam. If you are doubling the recipe, you may need to do this in batches or in two pans. Allow to sear without moving until they begin to release from the pan, about 2-3 minutes. Turn and cook on the other side, being mindful of how long they cooked on the first side and taking care that they do not get overdone.
Arrange the cucumber salad in shallow bowls and place the scallops on top. Drizzle any dressing left behind in the bowl over the scallops before serving.