Scallops with Green Onions and Hoisin Sauce

Every so often you know it's going to happen, you know what I'm talking about, disaster in the kitchen. It has been a while for me but tonight disaster found me and nearly ruined my dinner. I suppose it is one of the hazards of cooking with a new pot, like my cast iron wok, and learning how to use it.

This particular meal comes from a web site called Sam the Cooking Guy. This is my first recipe from his web site. I like his recipes normally easy with easy to find ingredients, just the way I like it. And if Sam happens, by some remote chance, see this I'm sorry I will try to do better next time.

This meal is Scallops with Green Onions and Hoisin Suace. For some of you out there that don't like scallops you don't have to tell me "I don't like scallops" because I don't care, it only means more for me. It doesn't mean you can't cook this all you have to do is substitute chicken for the scallops. Ok? Ok.



This is the only picture of the meal on a plate because one of the disasters tonight was how it looked on the plate when I got done.

Here is the cast of characters.



Now with a simple cast like that how in the world could I screw this up? Just follow along.

Since I knew it would only take only 3-4 minutes to cook the scallops and green onions the first thing I needed to do was cook the rice. Normally rice is fairly simple to cook, twice as much water as rice, bring to a boil, cover, let set for a half hour or so over real low heat, take off heat, fluff and serve. I think I screwed up the "real low heat" part tonight. When the rice was done it was done a little more than it should have been on the bottom. Let's just say about 1/4 of the rice ended up down the garbage disposal.

While the rice is cooking and everything seems fairly normal right now I get everything ready so when I cook the scallops I have what I need in front of me. Like I said earlier it only takes 3-4 minutes to cook this meal. (If Rachael Ray did this meal she would have 25 minutes of dead air time.) This meal is so simple (so I thought) the only prep work is the rice and making the sauce for the scallops.



Another one of those great actions shots in the kitchen.

Once the rice is done and ready on the plate it's time to start the scallops and green onions. Add 1 tablespoon of peanut oil to a hot wok and then add the scallops and green onions.



After the scallops are cooked add the sauce we mixed up earlier.



Now doesn't everything look nice and calm in the pictures? Well trust me they're not. I have a hot wok that burns food if allowed to sit in one place very long (maybe that's why it's called stir fry), I have a camera on a tripod right in front of the stove and to my right, I'm trying to take pictures with one hand and stir with the other. I just learned tonight I'm not coordinated enough to do that. I have a camera that uses no flash inside the house plus I have the shutter set up on a 2 second timer so I'm not touching the camera and I get no jiggling of the camera when the shutter snaps. Take the 2 second delay, plus the time it takes me to find the shutter button to push it, plus the 2 seconds for the shutter on the camera to stay open because of the lack of light in the kitchen and this ends up being an eternity when cooking stir fry. Somehow I survived all this without knocking over my camera, burning myself or burning down the house.

Once everything was cooked I realized I now have another problem. How do I get everything in the wok onto my overcooked rice on the plate? Keep in mind this is a cast iron wok that weighs 14 pounds to pick it up with one arm, tip it up over the plate and scrape out the scallops isn't easy. Another thing I learned tonight I'm not strong enough to this with my left hand or for that matter my right either. Keep in mind I said cast iron not only is it heavy but it retains heat too. Once the wok is hot it takes quite a while to cool down so waiting for it to cool down wasn't an option or setting on the kitchen counter because I was afraid it would burn the counter. So I did what I had to and grabbed it by both handles and shook the scallops out of it and on to the plate. Just one problem if you ever had scallops you know they are kind of round in shape. When they hit the plate they had enough momentum they didn't stop there they kept on rolling right onto the floor. Panic starts to set in as I watch my dinner roll across the floor so with some quick thinking I tip the wok up and slow the momentum down of the scallops coming out of the wok. Keep in mind the scallops were covered with Hoisin sauce so they weren't hard to find on the floor, just follow the trial of Hoisin sauce across the floor.

After everything was back on the plate where it belonged I started taking pictures and I thought the plate looked like such a mess I decided I couldn't use the zoomed out photos so this is all I'm left with.



Over all a good meal and I will rate it a 4.25 forks out of 5. The next time I cook it I am going to start the scallops first and after a minute or so I am going to put the green onions in.

And if Sam the Cooking Guy does happen to see this I apologize next time I will do better.

Scallops with Green Onions & Hoisin

Ingredients
1/2 lb scallops, defrosted and dried on paper towels
1/4 cup Chinese Hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon dry sherry
6 scallions (green onions)
1 tablespoon peanut oil

Steps
1. Trim green onion ends and cut into 1" pieces
2. Mix together Hoisin, soy, and sherry
3. Heat wok with oil until almost smoking
4. Put in green onions and scallops - stir-fry 2 to 3 minutes until scallops are cooked
5. Add Hoisin mixture and stir all until thickened and heated through, about a minute
6. Sprinkle with finely chopped green onion and serve over rice.

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Sam the Cooking Guy- Scallops with Green Onions & Hoisin http://www.thecookingguy.com/cookbook/recipe.php?id=174
1 of 1 11/15/2008 1:22 PM