Sea Scallops

Succulent Sea Scallops Delight

Sea Scallops

with Sunomono and Treviso lettuce
Talk about simple and impressive starters to a dinner party! The star is the scallops, and cooked properly, the don’t need additional help with fancy sauces and it’s healthy too! It’s all in how long you cook and how hot the pan is for scallops, but the real key is to only turn them once, basically like other proteins. People flip and flip the food, which causes important juices to leak of the center of the protein. For scallops, if you do over cook or constantly flip it over and over, you won’t get that golden brown crisp thing you want for an excellent scallop. Also, the scallop needs to be dry as possible, so the sugars get released giving you that golden brown thing! Treviso is a variety of radicchio chicory and it’s great sauteed as a vegetable!
Serves 4

Ingredients
  

  • 8 U10 sea scallops, dried between paper towels (you must have the largest scallops you can get)
  • 2 Tbsp sunflower oil
  • Pink salt and black pepper, to taste
  • 1 hothouse organic cucumber, thinly sliced, preferably with a mandoline
  • ½ cup organic seasoned rice vinegar
  • 1 small to medium head Treviso, julienned, (found at most markets)
  • 1 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds
  • 1 lemon, cut in half

Instructions
 

  • In a large bowl, slice the cucumbers very thing on a mandoline. Cover with seasoned rice vinegar and add the sesame seeds. Marinate for 1 hour and drain. Julienne the Treviso and place in the center of a salad plate or bowl of your choice. I always like white. Make sure you dry the scallops between 2 paper towels just before cooking. Season with salt and pepper to taste. In a large nonstick saute pan, heat the oil on high heat. Carefully add each scallop to the pan. Cook for 1 – 1 ½ minutes. If the scallops are more than an inch thick, cook 1 ½ minutes. Carefully turn over the scallops over and cook another minute. Turn off the heat and let sit another minute.
  • While the scallops are resting, place some Sunomono on top of the Treviso as shown in the photo. Place 2 scallops on top of the Sunomonoon all 4 plates and squeeze a bit of lemon juice on top of each plate. Serve with a crisp, cold Sancerre.