Long live Coquilles St. Jacques!
I love scallops in any form: baked, BBQed, raw, pan-fried, deep-fried, in seafood stews, in salads, in pasta, in sushi. You name it, if it contains scallops, I'll eat it. (Kathleen and Nina, you may want to skip this entry as I know neither of you are fans of scallops :) )
Last week, we ventured into the territory of the Coquilles St. Jacques, as scallops are known here in France. Amazingly, one can purchase live scallops still in the shell. We invited Kyra's friend Lauren over for dinner and as I described in a previous blog entry, David shucked the live scallops himself. Apparently, having that one meal of scallops wasn't enough because I went to our local outdoor market and picked up more than 4 kilos of Coquilles Saint Jacques on Friday morning from our favorite fishmonger (at a great price because they were packing up!).
David spent about 30 minutes shucking the scallops -- not a pleasant task, but definitely worth the effort. Each scallop that emerged from the ooey-gooey mess was white, pristine, and sweet-smelling. It was a shame to throw away all those beautiful coquilles shells (did you know that they were once used for currency?). Our next task was to figure out what to do with 24 beautiful scallops.
Typical of how we cook together, David wanted to make some his way, and I wanted to make some my way.
David transformed his scallops into Scallop Dynamite, his version of a Japanese appetizer we've enjoyed in restaurants. It consisted of scallops, sauteed mushrooms, shallot, mayonnaise, soy sauce, sesame oil, black pepper and paprika combined and baked in a scallop shell in the oven and topped off with a squeeze of lemon juice and some chopped parsley. The result was delicious: savory, sweet, creamy, and rich.
I have been re-reading my Gourmet Magazine 2001 Paris issue. In it were two coquilles recipes that I tried: seared scallops with a beurre blanc sauce and baked marinated scallops with herbs and butter. Both recipes were very simple to prepare (I was able to do it with Emmett hanging out in the backpack) and both highlighted exactly what I love about scallops: they were sweet, tender, and meaty.
We polished off our remaining scallops for dinner tonight. My biggest regrets are that I didn't take any photos of our finished products and that Emmett is still too young to have some with us.
Last week, we ventured into the territory of the Coquilles St. Jacques, as scallops are known here in France. Amazingly, one can purchase live scallops still in the shell. We invited Kyra's friend Lauren over for dinner and as I described in a previous blog entry, David shucked the live scallops himself. Apparently, having that one meal of scallops wasn't enough because I went to our local outdoor market and picked up more than 4 kilos of Coquilles Saint Jacques on Friday morning from our favorite fishmonger (at a great price because they were packing up!).
David spent about 30 minutes shucking the scallops -- not a pleasant task, but definitely worth the effort. Each scallop that emerged from the ooey-gooey mess was white, pristine, and sweet-smelling. It was a shame to throw away all those beautiful coquilles shells (did you know that they were once used for currency?). Our next task was to figure out what to do with 24 beautiful scallops.
Typical of how we cook together, David wanted to make some his way, and I wanted to make some my way.
David transformed his scallops into Scallop Dynamite, his version of a Japanese appetizer we've enjoyed in restaurants. It consisted of scallops, sauteed mushrooms, shallot, mayonnaise, soy sauce, sesame oil, black pepper and paprika combined and baked in a scallop shell in the oven and topped off with a squeeze of lemon juice and some chopped parsley. The result was delicious: savory, sweet, creamy, and rich.
I have been re-reading my Gourmet Magazine 2001 Paris issue. In it were two coquilles recipes that I tried: seared scallops with a beurre blanc sauce and baked marinated scallops with herbs and butter. Both recipes were very simple to prepare (I was able to do it with Emmett hanging out in the backpack) and both highlighted exactly what I love about scallops: they were sweet, tender, and meaty.
We polished off our remaining scallops for dinner tonight. My biggest regrets are that I didn't take any photos of our finished products and that Emmett is still too young to have some with us.
posted by Lynna | 4:39 PM
1 Comments:
Ok, come home now. My tummy growls for your cuisine. You and David can fight over how you want to prepare it. I'll be sure to eat it all.
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