Recipe: Seared Scallop and Summer Fruit Salad with Lemon Prosecco Vinaigrette

If you are standing at the fish counter, you might get scared by the price of scallops, especially the gigantic sea scallops. And you might think to yourself: I've heard scallops are easy to ruin. I'm not going to buy something expensive that I will ruin and end up eating drive-thru food because I spoiled dinner.

Good point. But once in awhile, it's good to take a chance. And scallops are actually easy to cook, as long as you pay attention.

They are expensive, however, so I usually only buy them a couple of times a year. When I do, I want to pair them with delicious ingredients that won't overwhelm their delicate flavor. A few years ago, I tried a recipe that paired scallops with watermelon, and since then, I've been hooked on this combination. 

Yesterday, I bought some scallops and watermelon, and came up with this recipe using some things I had in my refrigerator. This salad uses seasonal fruits - I used watermelon and blueberries, but you could use others as well. I wanted to add nectarine, but it wasn't quite ripe. This dish would make a good special occasion meal, because it's pretty, and every bite is different, depending upon what you have on your fork: spicy arugula, tangy goat cheese, sweet berries and melon, zesty basil. 

So... about those scallops. How do you ensure success?        

                                                       

First,  for this recipe, you want to buy sea scallops. Most scallops are rated either "Best Choice" or "Good Alternative" by Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch. This means that you can feel pretty good about most of the ones that you pick up (the only ones that aren't rated good are actually not scallops at all, but skates, which are sometimes cut up and sold as bay scallops). Sea scallops are the big ones; bay scallops are little and are better for recipes where they don't stand alone, such as pastas. Depending upon the size, each person should get 3-5.

Make sure that your "fishmonger" (that guy at the fish counter) gives you fresh scallops - they should be sort of pinkish and smell clean. If you live far from the ocean, lots of people recommend flash frozen scallops instead of fresh.

When you are ready to cook the scallops, rinse them off and pat them dry, then sprinkle on a little salt. Heat some oil or butter in a skillet over high heat. You want the oil to be very hot, smoking a little. Then put the scallops in the pan, without crowding them. Don't move them. Just let them sit for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Keep an eye on them, watching the side of the scallop. You'll see that the cooked part turns opaque - turn them over just before that opacity hits the mid-point of the scallop. Then let the other side cook for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. When you see that only the very mid-point is still translucent, remove from heat and serve right away. The middle might retain some translucency, but remember that the scallop will keep cooking after you take it from the heat. 

If you're nervous, you might want to try with a practice scallop before you sear the whole batch. However, you'll probably find out that it is easier than you think to sear scallops just like in a restaurant.

Recipe: Seared Scallop and Summer Fruit Salad with Lemon Prosecco Vinaigrette

Step One: Salad 

Ingredients per serving:

a handful of baby arugula

3-4 basil leaves, chopped finely

1/4 cucumber, cut into spears

1/4-1/2 watermelon, seeded and cubed into 1 inch pieces

1/4-1/2 cup blueberries or other ripe fruit

1 oz. goat cheese, crumbled

Mix all of the salad ingredients and arrange in the center of the plate.

Step Two: Dressing
Ingredients: (serves 4-6)
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp prosecco or other sparkling wine
approx. 1/2 tsp. black pepper
Splash red wine vinegar

Using a fork or whisk, mix the ingredients for the dressing.

Step Three: Scallops
Ingredients: 
3-5 scallops per person, depending on size
sea salt

Following the instructions above, sear the scallops. Arrange them around the salad and drizzle the salad with 1-2 tsps. of dressing. Serve immediately.

Sustainable Seafood: Salmon En Croute

AKA: Salmon and Spinach Hot Pockets


Do you know what kind of recipes are great? The kind that are easy to make but which seem fancy to everyone else. This is one of those recipes.


Another great kind of recipe is the kind you can freeze, then pull out and cook for delayed deliciousness. This is one of those recipes too!

And, I love recipes that use sustainable ingredients. Add to the list of sustainable ingredients: canned salmon. You want to read the label to make sure it's not farmed salmon (often called "Atlantic."). Instead choose wild caught Alaska salmon, which is rigorously regulated. (Click here for an article from NPR with a few more salmon facts).


Salmon En Croute (salmon in a crust) usually consists of puffed pastry around salmon and veggies (usually spinach or asparagus). However, in this recipe, I use phyllo dough, because it's lower in calories. Phyllo dough can be found in the freezer section of your grocery store. It comes in a pile of thin sheets -- they look a little like rice paper. They can be tricky to work with, because if they dry out, the dough is fragile.


To avoid breaking the phyllo sheets, unroll the sheets (they come in a tube). Cover them with some cling wrap and then a damp towel. Take out the number of sheets that you need, then cover the rest back up. 


This recipe makes a good brunch dish or a dinner with a side of asparagus or a green salad. If you freeze the pockets, you can bake them for a quick lunch (instructions at the end of the recipe).


Ingredients:
2 cans of wild caught Atlantic salmon
12 oz. of frozen chopped spinach, thawed, with the excess water squeezed out. You can also chop up fresh spinach and wilt it by heating in a saute pan.
4 oz. crumbled goat cheese
capers (a couple of tablespoons, or more if you really like them)
juice of one lemon
one roll of phyllo dough sheets
olive oil (I use oil in a mister, but you could also use a pastry brush)


Step 1: Mix together the first five ingredients in a bowl and set aside. These are the filling.


Step 2: One at a time, take five sheets of dough and lay them out on a clean surface. Mist each sheet with olive oil (or brush with olive oil). Using a sharp knife, cut the stack of dough sheets into quarters. Each pocket will use two quarters.

Step 3.

Step 3: Scoop filling into the center of one of the quarters. Carefully place another quarter over the filling. 


Step 4: You're going to fold the edges to close the pocket. Get your fingers a little wet and fold the edges toward the center, so that you have about a 1/4-inch seam all around the outside. Use the water on your fingers to seal the edges. 

Here's what it looks like when you fold
the edges. Make sure that you've sealed them
so they don't unfold.

Step 5: Mist the top of the pocket with olive oil. With a sharp knife, cut 3 slits in the center of the pocket to let hot air escape.


Repeat steps 2-5 until you've used up all the filling.


Step 6a: If you're going to bake them right away, put the pockets on a baking sheet. Cover with cling wrap and a damp towel while you're making the other pockets. When you're ready, put them into a preheated oven (look on the phyllo package directions for temperature). Cook according to the phyllo package instructions, or until golden brown.


Step 6b: If you want to freeze the pockets, wrap them individually in cling wrap or foil without baking them. You can then put them in a bag or tupperware and stick them in the freezer. When you're ready to eat them, bake until heated through. It takes about 20 minutes in my toaster oven at 400 degrees. Remember they'll need more time in a full size oven.

Sustainable Seafood: Smoked Salmon Pizzettes

Friday night I wanted a little end-of-week treat, but I've been eating healthy and sustainable food since the new year, so I didn't want to break my stride.

I decided to make a lightened-up version of a smoked salmon pizza that I've had at restaurants and at a few friends' homes. This mini-pizza is elegant and yet healthy and easy to prepare -- it would make a wonderful Valentine's dinner for you and an ecologically-minded sweetie, or you could slice it up for appetizers for your Quirkyalone Day party.

When I've had this type of pizza before, it usually has a cream cheese topping. To lighten it up, I mixed 1/3-less-fat cream cheese with skyr. Skyr is a very soft cheese that can be eaten like yogurt; the most common brand is called Siggi's. If you can't find skyr, you could just use cream cheese or Greek yogurt.

One last note: to ensure that you're using sustainable salmon, look for Alaskan, rather than Atlantic salmon. I like to use my Seafood Watch app when I'm shopping to make sure I'm making a sustainable choice.

Ingredients:
1 piece of naan or lavash for each pizzette (you could also use a grilled flour tortilla, a mini pre-cooked pizza shell like Boboli, a pita, or any kind of cracker bread -- this also makes an awesome snack when the ingredients are piled on a rye crisp)
Smoked salmon, crumbled into smaller pieces, with a little extra for your cat
Tomato
Capers

For the cream cheese topping, mix the following:
1/4 c. 1/3-less-fat cream cheese (or neufchatel)
1/4 c. skyr
1 heaping tablespoon chopped dill
1 heaping tablespoon chopped chives
salt and pepper to taste

To assemble pizzas:
Heat your naan or other bread product according to package instructions. Spread about 2 tablespoons of the cream cheese topping on the bread, then heap the salmon, tomato, and capers in amounts to your liking.

Couldn't be easier, and it's so delicious!

Sustainable Seafood: Buyer Beware!

Yesterday I was at the store and I saw this sign.

I thought it was a little funny, because I'd been standing there on my phone, checking Seafood Watch to see if I should buy any of the fish in the bin.

No. No I should not. Not a single package in the bin was recommended as a "Best Choice" or "Good Alternative" by Seafood Watch. It was all listed as "Avoid."

Now I realize that the sign doesn't say, "Hey! In this bin here! Seafood that won't make you wake up in the middle of the night wracked with guilt!" It says that somewhere in the store is some sustainable seafood. Maybe not even in this store. Just in the chain of stores.

However, I think many people would assume, since the sign was next to a big freezer full of fish, that it was indicating THOSE fish. And most people probably don't know that you can't just look at the name of the fish on a package to see if it's sustainable. You also have to check where it was farmed. There are several kinds of fish that are sustainable if farmed in the US, not as sustainable if farmed in Asia.

And while we're talking fish, let's talk about "wild-caught." Wild-caught implies a happy little fish frolicking in a stream until your Uncle Ben, wearing hip waders, catches it with the fly he tied while sitting on the porch after church. However, wild-caught also does not mean sustainable. You've just gotta know for sure.

So what can you do? Well, the Seafood Watch app is now available for the iPhone and Android, or you can simply visit the website and download a printable pocket guide. And don't forget to read those labels carefully before you buy.

Or better yet, just get Uncle Ben to bring over some of the fish he caught ... after you check to make sure that it wasn't living in contaminated waters... .

Sustainable Seafood: Salmon ...

Plus: The "Back to Madrid" Sandwich

When I was in Madrid earlier this year, we stayed at the Husa Paseo del Arte. Right across the street was a little cafe where we ate breakfast each morning. And each day I had the same thing: a sandwich with salmon, brie, and some kind of tomato jelly on "home bread" (that's what they called it on the English side of the menu).

Because it's been so hot lately, most cooking adventures haven't appealed to me, but the other day I got it into my head to try to re-create that sandwich.

When buying salmon, if sustainability is important to you, you want to read labels. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, you should avoid most Atlantic salmon, and stick with wild Pacific salmon, especially the carefully-managed Alaska salmon. Luckily, at my neighborhood grocery, the smoked salmon was clearly marked with the species, location, and method of harvest, so I was able to make a sustainable choice.

But now... for the recipe. I looked for some kind of tomato jelly, but didn't find any. Instead, I used fig preserves, because I've found that fig goes well with several savory flavors. If you can't find fig, I would use a preserve with a rich, complicated flavor - stay away from your strawberry and grape.

"Back to Madrid" Sandwich

Ingredients for each serving:

a sandwich roll from your store's bakery; I used ciabatta, but you could use any type of roll that isn't too thick

3-4 slices of smoked salmon

brie, sliced thinly - enough to cover the bread

fig preserves

1) Slice the roll and spread on a thin layer of preserves. Then add the salmon and brie. Close up the sandwich.

2) I used a grill pan to create a makeshift panini press. Of course, you could use an actual panini press, or just bake the sandwich in the oven (at 350 until the cheese is melty and the bread is warm). Here's how I made my panini press (with apologies for the lame phone photos):

• Spray olive oil on a grill pan and heat to medium-high.
• Put the sandwich on the grill pan. Cover with a piece of tinfoil or wax paper and then put a heavy pan on top of the sandwich to squish it. I used a saucepan with a teakettle inside:

• Cook for 2-3 minutes or until nice grill lines form. Flip the sandwich and cook for another minute or two.

And voila! You're done and you can take a little mental trip to Madrid.

Sustainable Seafood: Scallops

The other day I was paging through Cooking Light magazine (a great magazine for people who like cooking; they have lots of sustainable and vegetarian recipes) and I saw a little green fish next to a recipe. After some exploring, I saw that the green fish is a new symbol they are using to indicate recipes made from sustainable seafood choices.

I had been planning on making a shrimp salad from the magazine, but it didn't have the green fish next to it, so I tried the grilled scallop salad instead.

Why does sustainable seafood matter? Because 75% of the world's fisheries are overfished. When we catch fish and shellfish faster than they can reproduce, the entire ecosystem - not just that fish population - is impacted. For example, in the Chesapeake Bay, oysters have been overfished. Because the oysters kept the algae from growing too fast, the depletion of oysters disrupted the oxygen levels in the bay, creating large dead zones (want to know more? click here)

The same cycles of ecological disruption occur wherever there is overfishing. Luckily, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has a great consumer-awareness program called Seafood Watch. They publish pocket guides that you can take with you to the store to help you choose sustainable seafood. There's even an App for that - for both iPhone and Android operating systems.

Why are scallops a great choice? Well, the Monterey Bay Aquarium lists all scallops as "Good Alternative" or "Best Choice." That means that you can feel good about any scallops you find at the store.

I invited a couple of friends over for the scallop-cooking adventure. The recipe I chose was Grilled Scallop Salad, a beautiful mix of romaine, watermelon, and avocado (that's it, in the picture up above) with a lime dressing. I was kind of nervous about cooking the scallops, though - I've seen enough Top Chef contestants brought down by chewy scallops to know that cooking them is a delicate art.

I did what any amateur chef does when a cooking challenge arises: I Googled "how to buy scallops" and "how to cook scallops". Here's what I learned:

Buying: Buy your scallops within 24 hours of cooking them. Choose scallops that aren't too fishy smelling - they should smell a little sweet. Ask the "fishmonger" (a.k.a. the really nice girl at Whole Foods) to include some ice in your package so that the scallops stay cold all the way home. (Seriously, every website said "fishmonger". What is this? The Boston docks in 1775?) You can also buy frozen scallops - but again, Top Chef has taught me that frozen scallops will have you "packing up your knives" and leaving the kitchen faster than Padma Lakshmi can change outfits.

Storing: Store them, wrapped in paper, in the fridge. Remember... you want to cook them less than a day after you buy them.

Preparing: Rinse the scallops in cold water. Most scallops have a little flap of muscle on them that will end up chewy no matter what you do. Cut this off.

Cooking: I watched a great YouTube video to build my confidence. In the video, the chef sears the scallops in a skillet; I used a grill pan - the recipe called for using an actual grill, but I don't have one so I use my grill pan for all recipes that involve grilling. Even though the video had a slightly different cooking method, I learned a few things: salt and pepper the scallops, making sure that there are not big globs of salt anywhere; make sure your oil is hot-hot-hot before you put the scallops on; and watch carefully. The scallops will go from translucent to opaque. When the opacity has climbed halfway up the scallop, it's time to turn them over. This should take about 1-2 minutes. I had nice big scallops, so it was about 2 minutes per side.

The result? Perfect, sweet, and buttery-tasting scallops. I was really happy with the whole meal, especially because I knew that we weren't harming the ocean to fill our bellies. Scallops are expensive, so it will definitely be a special occasion meal, but I'm going to continue to experiment with cooking them.