Scallops with Garlic Basil Linguine

Yippie kay yay the wife is gone and it is time for some seafood, well not yippie kay yay the wife is gone but YIPPE KAY YAY it's time for seafood.  It is a tough call which I like better shrimp or scallops, probably comes down to what day you ask me, some days I will pick shrimp and others scallops. 

When I lived in Wisconsin, or for the matter Michigan, fresh seafood was hard to come by.  There was a good seafood market in Sheboygan but they certainly didn't have the choices we have here in Maryland.  Here in Maryland I have choices, I can go to the Maine Avenue Fish Market in D.C or one of the local Whole Foods Markets.  The Whole Food Market is easier but if given the chance I go to the Maine Avenue Fish Market. 

This episode starts off with very few and simple cast of characters.

I chose the garlic basil linguine for this meal because 1) when I saw it at Trader Joe's a week a go it looked good and 2) it was already in my refrigerator (yes we keep our pasta in the refrigerator and don't ask me why because I can't tell you). 

We start by browning the scallops in the olive oil and butter.  To get the tasty caramelizing on the scallops make sure you dry them off before you put them in the pan because if you don't all they will do is steam.

Once the scallops have the wonderful caramelizing on them it's time to remove them from the pan and deglaze the pan with a little white wine.  I'll be honest here and tell you I am not a wine drinker, if fact I can't stand the taste of the stuff but I do like cooking with it.  Tonight was a special because I got to open a new bottle of wine.  I use the wine to clean all those delicious brown bits of goodness off the bottom of the pan so you can pour it over the top of the scallops and finish them off with style.

Not only are scallops my favorite seafood item (at least for today)  I think they are my favorite type of food period.  The scallops have succulent sweet flavor unlike anything else you have ever eaten.  This particular meal had a hint lemon flavor (probably because I used lemon juice huh?).  I have to rate this meal a 5 out of 5 forks because after it is scallops and how can you go wrong with that.  I should mention the linguine from Trader Joe's was good too.  The basil flavor really came through the linguine and I could also taste a hint of garlic.  I would definitely use it again and I will probably use it in other meals as well.

Scallops and Linguine in White Wine Sauce

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 pound fresh scallops

8 oz. Linguine Pasta

2 cloves Garlic, thinly sliced

1/2 cup White Wine

1 fresh lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

Parmesan Cheese

Instructions

Bring to as boil salted water and add linguine and cook until al dente, tender-firm.

Preheat skillet over medium high heat. Add butter and olive oil. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute or until fragrant. Meanwhile dry off scallops and salt and pepper. Add scallops to skillet and cook for 2 minutes or until browned. Turn over and cook for 2 more minutes until cooked through being careful to not over cook. Use ½ of lemon over scallops and remove from pan.

Add white wine and deglaze pan, reduce for about 1 minute and add other half of lemon juice.

Start with linguine on plate, add scallops, pour reduced white wine from skillet over scallops and garnish with parmesan cheese.

Shrimp and Grits

Anybody out there watch Throwdown with Bobby Flay? I do and it is one of my favorite shows on TV. A couple of weeks ago he did a throwdown with a guest from Georgia and the throwdown was shrimp and grits. I have never had the pleasure of eating shrimp and grits, shoot I have never eaten grits but I have been wanting to make them for sometime now. Once I watched the episode I knew I wouldn't get them out of my mind until I finally tried them.



Let's get busy and introduce the cast of characters:



Pretty simple cast this week.

I wasn't to sure about the grits part but what the heck all they are is cornmeal cooked with some sort of broth. I had two choices on how to cook them Bobby Flay's way or the real way his throwdown partner cooked them. Since I really didn't need all the butter and cream in the second way I choose Flay's way which was with shrimp stock and cheddar cheese.





I did all my stirring with a wooden spoon just like the show suggested. I'm not real sure what the wooden spoon has to do with anything but I stuck by the directions. One change I had to make was I had to use yellow cheddar cheese instead of white because I couldn't find the white cheddar cheese in our grocery store. Hard to believe since I live in Wisconsin the supposed king of cheddar cheese.





Once the grits are cooked it's time to start on the shrimp portion of this episode. Start with browning up some bacon......



....finish up with the garlic and shrimp....



....and it's really that easy.

All that's left is to put everything together.



A pretty fine meal and one I will be making again in the near future. The grits could have been creamery and next time I think I will add another 1/2 to 1 cup of broth so they aren't so thick. I am rating this a 4 out of 5 forks because the man from the south ended winning the throwdown episode against Bobby Flay. I have to admit the southern shrimp and grits did look better but there were so many bad things in it, like cream, butter, more cream, I just couldn't bring myself to make them. I also think next time I will use andouille sausage instead of bacon and I will come up with a different type of sauce to pour over the top. I think I will use Emeril's Essence on the shrimp before I cooked them too.



Bar American’s Gulf Shrimp and Grits

Recipe courtesy Bobby Flay

Prep Time: 20 min

Ingredients
Grits:
4 to 5 cups shrimp stock
Salt
1 cup yellow stone ground cornmeal
1 cup grated white Cheddar
Freshly ground black pepper
3 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish

Sautéed Shrimp:
1/2 pound thick double-smoked cut bacon, cut into lardoons
2 tablespoons pure olive oil
20 large (21 to 24 count) shrimp, shelled and deveined
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions
For the grits:
Bring 4 cups of the water and 2 teaspoons of salt to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat. Slowly whisk in the grits and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and continue cooking until the grits are soft and have lost their gritty texture, whisking every few minutes, 15 to 20 minutes. If the mixture becomes too thick, add remaining water and continue cooking until absorbed. Add the cheese and whisk until smooth; season with salt and pepper.

For the shrimp:
Place bacon in a medium pan over medium heat and cook until golden brown and crisp and the fat has rendered. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon to a plate lined with paper towels.

Remove all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat from the pan and place back on the heat. Add the olive oil and increase the heat to high Season the shrimp with salt and pepper, and add to the pan with the garlic. Sauté until golden brown on both sides and just cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes per side. Remove shrimp to a plate. Reserve the garlic oil to drizzle over the finished dish.

Divide the grits among 4 bowls and top each with 5 shrimp. Drizzle the top with some of the bacon-garlic oil (that the shrimp were sautéed in) and sprinkle with some of the green onion.

Printed from FoodNetwork.com on Sat Mar 28 2009 © 2009 Scripps Networks, LLC.
All Rights Reserved

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.

www.thecookingguy.com
Copyright © 2008 Sam the Cooking Guy. All Rights Reserved
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

Chipotle Shrimp

I love chinese food and even though I will probably never master the art of cooking chinese food it doesn't mean I can't try. You can cook chinese food in a regular frying pan but for some reason it just isn't the same as cooking it in a wok. I have a wok already but to be honest it is one of those tephlon coated cheap models. For the last couple of years I have been looking for a real wok, a cast iron wok. I have been told the cast iron woks will make all the difference in the world when it comes to chinese cooking.

Whenever I found a cast iron wok it usually had a round bottom on it to be used on gas cooking stoves. Now imagine my pleasure last weekend when I did a search for cast iron woks and up pops a Lodge cast iron wok, not only a Lodge cast iron wok but a Lodge cast iron wok with a flat bottom to use on electric stoves. Yippee ky yay. It took me about 5 seconds to talk it over with the wife and I had it ordered.

Fast forward to Thursday and while I am home eating lunch the UPS driver shows up with this.



Another yippee ky yay. Isn't that just a thing of beauty? Fourteen pounds worth of beauty. These preseasoned Pro Logic cast iron pots and pans are just the cats meow from Lodge. I like them because I can take them out of the box, wash them, and use them right away. No more seasoning the pans myself and stinking up the whole house for a day.

Of course I needed to use it right away so tonight I decided to try and make Mongolian Shrimp. The only problem was the store didn't cooperate with me so I was stuck with making up my own recipe tonight with ingredients I already had. It turned out ok in the end. I think I will call it Jock's Chipolte Shrimp.

This is what it looked like in the wok just before it was finished.



And this is what it looked like on my plate just before I devoured it.



Tomorrow I think I will go to Fond Du Lac and see if I can find the ingredients so I can make Mongolian Shrimp.

Stay tuned.

Jock’s Chipotle Shrimp

½ pound shrimp (or ½ pound of boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into cubes)
Emeril’s Essence

Sauce mixture:
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 Tbsp chipotle sauce
2 clove garlic, minced


6 green onions cut into 1-inch lengths
1 small to medium yellow onion, sliced
1 Tbsp cornstarch mixed with 2 Tbsp water
2 Tbsp peanut oil cooking.

Combine sauce ingredients separately

Heat wok and add oil. Sprinkle the shrimp with Essence.
When wok is hot add the shrimp.
Cook stirring constantly for about 2 minutes or until the shrimp are done.
Remove the shrimp. Add the yellow onions and cook for 2-3 minutes.
Add the sauce mixture and let it reduce over high heat for 1 minute.
Add the cornstarch/water mixture and cook until the sauce is the right
consistency. Add the green onions, cook for 1 minute and add the shrimp
back in and cook for another 1 minute.

Serve over rice.