Seared Sea Scallops with Gingered Pea Purée and Cilantro Gremolata

Over Thanksgiving Jed’s sister introduced us to food52.com, a super awesome community based recipe and food contest site. We immediately started searching the site and bookmarking tasty recipes to try. As soon as we came across this one for scallops with gingered pea puree I couldn’t wait to try it.

As he mentioned before, Jed loves scallops. It's really rare to find good scallops in a restaurant (we had awful scallops at some sushi place in the Valley, and awesome scallops at Susan Feniger’s STREET).

We used frozen scallops. I know, I know, frozen scallops are often a recipe for disaster (anyone watch Top Chef? Anyone remember what happened when Spike used frozen scallops?). Nevertheless, we’re on a perpetual budget and the entire meal turned out awesome!

We also used frozen peas in lieu of fresh peas- mostly for color, because flash frozen vegetables keep such nice color and cost a fraction of the fresh stuff (English peas in a pod are a seemingly hard to find year round and on a whim).

Try it for yourself. You’ll be thanking us…

For the Scallops and Pea Puree:

* 2 cups shelled English peas (or frozen peas)

* salt

* 1 large garlic clove

* 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

* 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

* 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

* freshly ground black pepper

* pinch cayenne (optional)

* 16 large sea scallops, about 1 1/2 pounds (we used about a pound)

* Cilantro Gremolata (see below- this was really good)

1. Prepare the Pea Purée: Bring 4 cups water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add 2 teaspoons salt and the peas. Cook until peas are tender. Remove from heat and drain peas, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid. Ask a question about this step.
2. Combine peas, 1/4 cup reserved water, garlic, ginger, 2 tablespoons olive oil, lemon juice, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper and cayenne in bowl of food processor. Purée until smooth. Add more water as necessary to achieve desired consistency; the purée should not be too thin. Transfer to a bowl and keep warm. Ask a question about this step.

3. Prepare scallops: Pat scallops dry and sprinkle all over with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add half of the scallops, taking care not to overcrowd in the pan. Cook, turning once, until brown on both sides and just cooked through, about 4 minutes. Transfer to plate and keep warm. Repeat with remaining scallops. Ask a question about this step.

4. To assemble, spoon pea purée on serving plates. Top with scallops. Sprinkle scallops and purée with gremolata. Drizzle lightly with extra-virgin olive oil. Serve immediately.

For the Cilantro Gremolata:

* 1 cup cilantro leaves, chopped

* 1 garlic clove, minced

* 2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest

* 1/2 teaspoon salt

* 1/2 teaspoon freshy ground black pepper

1. Combine all the ingredients together in a small bowl and mix well.

Serves 8 as an appetizer, 4 as a main course

Calamari and Spaghetti

I have a love for all things calamari and scallops. I've been getting better at cooking scallops, but I've only tried to cook with squid once before, and it came out edible, but overcooked and less interesting than I'd hoped. This was my second attempt, and it was delicious.

Ok, so the photo/presentation isn't the best in the world, but I've been trying to step away from the safety of having a recipe in front of me and cook more from the gut, and this was a really tasty success, so it was worth sharing. If I were on a pretentious cooking show, I'd say something about it being a "very simple dish that lets the ingredients speak for themselves."

Tip: Buy pre-cleaned squid. They're pretty easy to clean, but it's time consuming

I don't have exact measurements, because I didn't use a recipe, but here are the ingredients:

Calamari (I only used the bodies, not the tentacles, and cut them up into little tubes)

Garlic

1 Shallot

1 can of tomatoes (I used italian)

Red pepper flakes

White wine

Italian Parsley

Salt + Pepper

Parmesan

(I think I put just a touch of dried rosemary in there as well)

I cooked the garlic and shallot in olive oil, added the tomatoes, pepper flakes and white wine, and let it reduce for a little bit. I added the calamari, and right at the end, the parsley. Make sure you don't over cook the calamari, it cooks quickly (2-3 minutes) and gets rubbery if it's over cooked.

(This post is by Jed, even though it says it's from both of us)

ATK Vol. 2: Crab cakes! (with fresh herb salad [if we were in England, we'd pronounce the h in herb])

For our second installment of the ATK recipe series, we present to you, dear readers, ATK's Crab Cakes with Herb Salad.

These were pretty delicious, but not quite as satisfying as we had hoped. They were a little heavy, both on the mayo and on the stomach. Not a disappointment, but they need a little bit of work. The fresh herbs in the crab cakes were delicious, and I thought the herb salad was quite nice, but I think it was a little too-herby for Chelsi. (She says, "It was good though.")

We thought it could be improved by lightening up the mayo, and using panko crumbs for either all or half of the saltines. It could probably use just a little bit more spice too, at least in the dipping sauce. There's a chance that I mixed the crab into the other ingredients with a little too much force - it'd probably be better to have larger chunks of crab instead of small, broken up pieces.

1 1/4 cups mayo

3 Tbs + 1 tsp lemon juice

1 Tbs hot sauce

1 Tbs finely chopped + 1 cup packed whole leaf cilantro

1 Tbs finely chopped + 1 cup packed whole leaf mint

1 Tbs finely chopped + 1/2 cup packed dill

1 Lb crab meat (we used 1/2 lb lump, 1/2 lb claw because lump is 'spensive)

1 Cup crushed saltine crackers

4 Scallions, white parts minced, green parts sliced thin

2 Tbs + 2 tsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Whisk Mayo, 3 Tbs lemon juice, hot sauce and chopped herbs

Reserve 1/2 cup for a dip/topping

Fold crab meat, saltines and scallion whites, and form into 4-5 three inch patties

Heat 2 Tbs oil in large skillet until just smoking

Cook cakes until golden brown, 4-5 minutes on each side

Toss whole herb leaves and scallion greens with remaining oil and lemon juice, add salt + pepper

Serve crab cakes, salad and side of sauce

(This post is by Jed, even though it says it's from both of us)