Seared Scallops with Citrus Mint Gastrique

What, you're probably asking, do seared scallops have to do with the farm?  Nothing, really.

I tried to craft some clever connection, but here's the truth of it: my last blog touched briefly on Chef Tony Pope and his restaurant, Le Bistro.  One of the many lessons Tony taught me was how to cook "Oh my God!" scallops; you know, the scallops that melt onto your taste buds and demand an "Oh...my...God!" on impact.

Tonight I took a culinary tour down memory lane and prepared a riff on Tony's scallops for me and Dina.  Here's the recipe...

Seared Scallops with Citrus Mint Gastrique

Ingredients:

• Fresh, as-local-as-you-can-get-'em scallops
• Fresh mint
• Fresh lemon and orange (I used a couple of clementines, but you could use navel oranges...or blood oranges, that would be fun)
• Fresh ginger
• Shallot
• White wine
• Honey
• Canola oil (or blended or grapeseed - something with a subtle flavor and a high smoke point)
• Crushed garlic clove
• Salt, pepper, and cayenne
• Sauce pan, cast iron skillet (or other good skillet), fish spatula, and a metal spoon

Steps:

Starting the Sauce

1. Pick the leaves off a couple of sprigs of mint.  Rough chop or chiffonade the mint leaves (depending on the look you're going for) and reserve them for use later in the sauce.  Keep the stems handy for use in the gastrique.
2. Fine dice a shallot.
3. Smash up and inch or so of ginger.  I recommend using the tip of a metal spoon to scrape the skin off (a trick another chef taught me - works like a charm).  Then cut it it half length-wise.  Take the back of your knife (yes, the dull end) and whack up and down the ginger.  This breaks down the rigid root and prepares it to give up more flavor to the sauce.
4. Heat a heavy sauce pan on medium high.  Let a little butter melt in the pan as it's getting hot.  As the butter starts to brown, toss in the shallots and sautee until they are translucent (I like to add a little fine sea salt to build flavor.
5. Add some white wine - maybe a 1/4 or 1/2 cup, depending on how much sauce you need - and bring to a light boil.  Then lower heat to a simmer and start to reduce.  
6. A note about cooking with wine: you don't need to use expensive wine to cook with, but at least buy something that is pleasant to drink.  If you cook with bad wine, you're just reducing and concentrating that bad flavor.  And think about the impact you want it to have on your sauce.  This sauce is a little sweet with citrus notes, so I'm going to look for a crisp white wine, something with a touch of grapefruit, for example, might be nice.
7. Here's where the fun starts.  You can get creative, exploring with lots of fruit and spice and sweetness.  I wanted the light sweetness honey lends, so I added a little.  Not too much - you can always add more later, but can't take it out.  I also added the ginger pulp, the mint stems, a little lemon juice and the juice from two clementines.  Remember, you'll have an opportunity to boost these flavors later, so don't go overboard.  Taste the reduction along the way and if a flavor is growing too strong, take it out of the pot.  At any point you can strain out the solids and continue reducing the wine by itself.
8. This isn't a step, but I want you to know that it's o.k. to make mistakes...as long as you correct them.  I, for example, didn't add enough ginger and mint, so the flavors weren't showing up in the reduction the way I wanted.  So I threw in a ginger mint tea bag - yup, my favorite after-meal tea - and let it steep for a few minutes while the wine continued to reduce.
9. Once the liquid had starts to get thick, add about a half a cup of light veg stock (made from water, onion, celery, parsley stems, a green apple, and an orange - you can make it in an hour) and bring it back up to a simmer.  Once the combination of liquids has re-thickened, strain off any solids left in the sauce and leave off the heat nearby.

Searing the Scallops

1. Get a well-seasoned cast iron skillet good and hot.
2. While it's warming, roll the scallops in some canola oil.  Liberally salt both sides (again, fine sea salt) and if you like a little spice, sprinkle a touch of cayenne on one side only (scallops have such great natural flavor - don't go overboard with the cayenne).  And, make sure you have a little white wine handy to de-glaze the pan.
3. When the skillet is hot (a drop of water should hit the pan, hiss, dance around, and evaporate quickly), lay your scallops down flat in the pan.  Don't crowd.  
4. This next step is very important:  BE PATIENT!  If you try to flip the scallops too soon, they will stick to the pan and you'll loose that beautiful, dark, tasty sear.  So just relax and let the scallops do the same.
5. A note on pan heat: If the pan isn't hot enough, you'll never get a good sear.  The scallop will cook through and it'll ruin the texture before you ever get a good, crisp exterior.  If, at any point, the pan starts to smoke, the pan is too hot and you risk burning the scallops.  Take the pan off the heat for a while.  You could add a little room temperature oil to help protect the scallops, but do NOT add cold water and do NOT add butter.  The former will make the sear mushy and the latter will burn right up (because of butter's low smoke point) and give that burnt flavor to the scallops.
6. Once you see a dark rim form around the scallop where it touches the pan, test and see if the scallop is ready to release.  You can use your fingers or tongs (be gentle), but just wiggle it a little to see if it's sticking.  If so, let it hang out for another minute and try again.  If you're still having trouble, add a little butter to the pan.  This will often aide the release.  This is where the fish spatula comes in real handy.  You wanna flip the scallops over without leaving any flesh on the pan.
7. Once the scallops are flipped, toss a little butter in the pan, as well as a little lemon thyme, a crushed clove of garlic, maybe some sprigs of mint.  Tilt the pan at a slight angle so the melted butter and herbs are all together on one side (not too steep, however, because you want the scallops to sit tight).  Use the metal spoon to bathe the scallops in the flavored butter.
8. High quality scallops can be eaten raw and at this point, your scallops are probably sitting at rare.  I'd baste them 'til about medium rare and take them out of the pan then, but it's up to you and your guests' preferences.  Tent them with foil while you finish the sauce.

Finishing the Sauce

1. Remove any herbs/garlic from the pan and pour in a little wine.  You can use the same metal spoon to incorporate any scallop juices in the pan.  And scrape up any fond, incorporating it into the thickening wine.  As it thickens, pour in some (or all, depending how much you made) of the foundation sauce from earlier.  
2. Taste the sauce and add more salt if needed.  Whisk in some butter to make it thicker and more rich.  Hit it with a little more lemon and/or orange juice if you want to bump up the citrus flavor.  This is your "second bite at the apple", a chance to add anything that's missing or re-balance as you like.
3. The final step is to stir in the chopped mint.  If you do this too soon, the mint will turn a nasty, dark color.

Plate the scallops, ladle sauce generously, and enjoy! 

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For my birthday this year, my good friends The Jenkins got me a beautiful Himalayan salt block.  Tonight, instead of flipping the scallops in the skillet, I flipped them on to the stone which I had heated at 450 degrees for 30 minutes.  Great flavor!

If I had had a table of guests, I would have brought them out to the table this way - still sizzling - with the salt block lying on a decorative towel folded onto a plate (this way you don't get burned and neither do the plate or the table).