May 9, 2007
Pan-seared Scallops, White Bean Puree
This is a story of a good meal that wandered pretty far from its initial conception. Rachel and I were driving home on Sunday from a wedding-filled weekend in NYC and trying to figure out what to eat this week. Our usual routine is to plan a week's worth of dinners and do all of our shopping Sunday afternoon, but that plan was right out. We decided that I'd go shopping Monday night, and that we'd just eat something simple that would take no time at all to prepare. After all, who wants to spend time cooking after a long day of work and a trip to the grocery store? No one, that's who.
But then we got to thinking, as we will tend to do, and it occurred to us that if we were going to the store Monday night to eat that same day, why not get something Rachel really loves, like scallops? How about a quick pasta dish with scallops in it? Sounds simple and good.
But... pasta? Pasta's kind of dull, and besides, our third meal for the week involved pasta. So, wheels-a-turning, I hit the store, and came home with the ingredients for this.
(I'm not very good at turning some of these spur-of-the-moment meals into recipes, but I'm going to experiment with bolding the ingredients for those of you cooking along at home.)
First, I put about 3 cloves of minced garlic in a sauce pan with a splash of oil, and sweated it until it was nicely fragrant. I tossed in 3-4 sprigs of thyme salt, pepper, and 2 cups of chicken broth. I brought it to the boil, and then let it simmer.
I drained 2 15-oz cans of white (cannelini) beans and chucked them into the food processor with a pinch or two of salt, a dash of red pepper flakes, a handful of fresh thyme, and a handful of flat-leaf parsley. I gave it a few pulses, and turned my attention to the scallops.
The secret to good pan-seared scallops is high heat, and to make sure the scallops are patted thoroughly dry and salted and peppered. The other secret is to remember that 20 sea scallops are too many for even a 12" pan. The scallops around the edge of the pan, where the heat was highest, were done to perfection, although some of the scallops in the middle stuck to the pan a bit and did not get the brown crust I desired. I seared each scallop 3-4 minutes on each side.
Once the scallops were out of the pan, I deglazed with a splash of white wine and a ladleful of broth from the saucepan. I thoroughly scraped the delicious fond from the bottom of the pan, turned down the heat to low, and dumped in several good handfuls of dandelion greens (which I felt somewhat ridiculous buying given the state of our yard) and some red chard. I slapped on a lid and turned my attention back to the beans.
I added several ladlefuls of the hot broth to the food processor and gave it a few more pulses to incorporate it. If I had it to do over again, I might have heated the whole bean puree mixture, as it was warmed by the broth but not made hot enough.
Once the greens came out of the pan, there was plenty of liquid leftover to reduce and spoon over the plate.
Yum!
But then we got to thinking, as we will tend to do, and it occurred to us that if we were going to the store Monday night to eat that same day, why not get something Rachel really loves, like scallops? How about a quick pasta dish with scallops in it? Sounds simple and good.
But... pasta? Pasta's kind of dull, and besides, our third meal for the week involved pasta. So, wheels-a-turning, I hit the store, and came home with the ingredients for this.
(I'm not very good at turning some of these spur-of-the-moment meals into recipes, but I'm going to experiment with bolding the ingredients for those of you cooking along at home.)
First, I put about 3 cloves of minced garlic in a sauce pan with a splash of oil, and sweated it until it was nicely fragrant. I tossed in 3-4 sprigs of thyme salt, pepper, and 2 cups of chicken broth. I brought it to the boil, and then let it simmer.
I drained 2 15-oz cans of white (cannelini) beans and chucked them into the food processor with a pinch or two of salt, a dash of red pepper flakes, a handful of fresh thyme, and a handful of flat-leaf parsley. I gave it a few pulses, and turned my attention to the scallops.
The secret to good pan-seared scallops is high heat, and to make sure the scallops are patted thoroughly dry and salted and peppered. The other secret is to remember that 20 sea scallops are too many for even a 12" pan. The scallops around the edge of the pan, where the heat was highest, were done to perfection, although some of the scallops in the middle stuck to the pan a bit and did not get the brown crust I desired. I seared each scallop 3-4 minutes on each side.
Once the scallops were out of the pan, I deglazed with a splash of white wine and a ladleful of broth from the saucepan. I thoroughly scraped the delicious fond from the bottom of the pan, turned down the heat to low, and dumped in several good handfuls of dandelion greens (which I felt somewhat ridiculous buying given the state of our yard) and some red chard. I slapped on a lid and turned my attention back to the beans.
I added several ladlefuls of the hot broth to the food processor and gave it a few more pulses to incorporate it. If I had it to do over again, I might have heated the whole bean puree mixture, as it was warmed by the broth but not made hot enough.
Once the greens came out of the pan, there was plenty of liquid leftover to reduce and spoon over the plate.
Yum!
Looks delish. I hope RJ put all of this into Sparkle People