Monthly Archives: December 2012

12.18.12
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Scallops: Marvelous: EZ

Scallop Pan Roast

I am a lover of scallops, and am always up for a way to prepare them other than the “sear and dress” methods.

Back in ought-eight Melissa Clark wrote about the way the Oyster Bar in New York prepares scallops. I made the recipe, filed it as Scallop Pan Roast and didn’t open it again until now. How silly of me. This time, I opened the recipe and re-read the story and prepared those wonderful scallops.

She starts:

A PAN roast at the Oyster Bar, like cheesecake at Junior’s and frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity 3, is one of those dishes New Yorkers love to champion, even if we haven’t tasted it in decades.

She goes on to write about those scallops and how she might bring the recipe up to date. Her story is so lyrical and charming that I’ll include the whole thing at the end, but first, the recipe, which I rewrote for the way I cook.

Scallop Pan Roast
based on a recipe by Melissa Clark in The New York Times, January 2, 2008.
Yield: 2 servings.

PREP
Put out 3 Tbsp butter, milk, cream, scallops to come to room temperature.
Make toast.

COOK
1. In a heavy saucepan [chicken fryer] over low heat, combine 1/3 cup bottled clam juice, 2 tablespoons butter, 2 Tbsp Heinz chili sauce, 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 4 tsp gin, 1/2 tsp sweet paprika, 2 dashes celery salt and 1 dash <strong>Tabasco; bring just to a simmer.

Add 1/2 pound scallops and let cook for 30 seconds without simmering (if you see a bubble, pull pan off heat for a few seconds). Add 1/2 cup heavy cream and 3/4 cup whole milk and continue to heat without simmering until mixture is steaming hot and scallops are opaque, about 2 minutes longer.

pan stew cooking

Place a piece of toast in each of two bowls and then add pan roast, dividing scallops evenly. Float 1/2 Tbsp butter on top of each bowl. Eat immediately. Continue reading →

12.05.12
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BKFSTS: HB Eggs

egg mangled while peeling… the bluish bit to the right is irrevocably stuck to the white (the knife was not used in peeling, it is there to keep the egg from rolling over)

What a mess.

I am a lover of hard-boiled eggs. I make them 4 or 5 at a time to have on hand for breakfasts, or just to salt and pepper and eat out of hand. They are an excellent source of protein, they go with almost anything, and they taste good. What’s not to like?

What’s not to like is that this time of year, with really fresh pasture raised eggs, they’re almost impossible to peel. I get my eggs from Hadji Paul’s Chicken and Feed who come to the Farmers Market at Garden Shop Nursery on Sundays.

HB egg for breakfast with green beans, beet, roasted cauliflower, bits of potato and cheese curds

egg tool, for slicing or sectioning a HB egg.

sliced egg breakfast with castelvetrano olives, red beets, yellow beets and cheese curds

“There are two peculiarities associated with hard-boiled eggs. One is the occasional difficulty encountered when peeling the egg. It turns out that peelability is affected by the pH of the egg white, and so by the egg’s freshness. If the pH is below 8.9 — in a fresh egg it is closer to 8.0 — then the inner membrane tends to adhere to the albumen, whereas, at the figure typical after three days of refrigeration, around 9.2, the problem no longer exists. Exactly what the chemistry involved is, no one knows, though some cooks claim that salt in the cooking water helps.”

On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, Chapter 2: Eggs

Joy, the egg lady says that to peel, the eggs must be 10 days old. The mangled egg above was one of three I kept for 10 days. Well there you go. But I hadn’t read Harold McGee and didn’t salt the water. Maybe that works. Continue reading →