04.08.09
Posted in Dinner, Leftovers, Pastas, Seafood, Shellfish at 11:51 pm by julie
While my mom was in town for Nolan’s birthday, my aunt and uncle invited us to stay the night at the beach house they have spent the past five years renovating in Rockaway Beach. Jeremy stayed behind and had some much-needed baby-free time, I got to go farther away from Salem than I have in well over a year, and Nolan got to spend the night away from home for the first time. My aunt and uncle have a crabbing license, so they hauled out their crab pot and we took a stab at catching some fresh Dungeness. The tides weren’t with us, and it was a little cool out for the baby, so we only spent 45 minutes or so at it. In the end, we purchased two freshly caught crabs from a fishmonger at the beach, and shared half a crab cracked and dipped in butter. Nolan, the boy who ate everything, liked it almost as much as his great-aunt Stacy’s home-canned pears. The rest of the crab came home with me, and I used it in a quick, creamy pasta dish made with leftover spinach lasagna noodles.
I highly recommend having a crab cracker to shell your Dungeness crab if you don’t buy it in lump form. (Mine is called Jeremy.) Once the crab was de-shelled, this meal came together in a flash since most of it was already cooked. I had tons of lasagna noodles left from my Daring Bakers challenge, even after eating some of them for lunches simply dressed with leftover ragu and Parmesan. For this dish, I just ran a knife through them to make ribbons that I would call maltagliatelle—they were pretty ugly looking. (Real maltagliatelle is sort of triangular in shape, but it means bady cut pasta.) The original recipe called for shallot and dill, which I didn’t have on hand, but it sounds lovely.
Creamy Crab Pasta
1 lb fresh spinach pasta, cut into tagliatelle
1/2 lb lump dungeness crabmeat
1/4 C shallot, minced (I substituted onion)
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 T butter
2 C heavy whipping cream
1/4 C white wine
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly grated
1 pinch cayenne
Fresh dill weed, chopped
1/4 C parmesan cheese, freshly grated
Cook the pasta just until done in salted water (if fresh, it should only take a few minutes), then drain and set aside. (Mine was cooked previously for the lasagna, so I just removed it from the fridge and cut it in ribbons.)
Saute the shallots (or onion) and garlic in the butter over med-low heat until softened, about 1 to 2 minutes. Increase heat to high and add the heavy cream and boil to reduce for 1 minute. Add the white wine, sugar, salt and pepper, and pinch of cayenne and reduce heat to low heat and simmer for 2-3 minutes more.
Add the crabmeat, pasta, and Parmesan cheese and gently toss together until the noodles and crab warm up and marry with the sauce. Transfer to a serving platter and sprinkle with fresh dill and extra Parmesan.
Source: Adapted from RecipeZaar.
(Nolan’s first visit to the beach. In true Oregon fashion, it was cool and misting, but he fell asleep in the stroller before we even got there.)
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05.15.08
Posted in Cuisines, Dinner, Italian, Nuts, Grains & Legumes, Seafood, Shellfish at 12:13 am by julie
Nolan is going through a growth spurt right now, which means practically all he wanted to do on Friday was sleep and eat. I had some groceries delivered in the afternoon, and had been hoping for a good fish selection, but no dice. I ended up settling on some bay scallops, and was thrilled when the little guy ended up sleeping long enough for me to whip up a scallop and porcini risotto for dinner.
Our risotto was a slightly adapted version of a Food and Wine recipe: I included only dried porcinis and bay scallops (lacking shrimp and fresh mushrooms). I used Better Than Bouillion clam base in rather than bottled clam juice, and reduced the amount to a single cup. The result was a very filling, savory meal, and the bay scallops in this context were decidedly less stressful to cook than seared sea scallops—which I always worry about turning into rubber balls.
Bay Scallop Risotto
1/2 oz dried porcini mushrooms
2/3 C boiling water
4 C low-sodium chicken broth or homemade stock
1 C water, plus 1 tsp Better Than Bouillion clam base (or 1-2 C bottled clam juice)
1 T olive oil
1 T butter
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/4 C arborio rice
1/4 C dry white wine
1 tsp kosher salt
1 lb bay scallops
In a small bowl, soak the porcinis in the boiling water until softened, about 15 minutes. Remove the mushrooms and strain their liquid into a medium saucepan through a sieve lined with a paper towel. Rinse the mushrooms well to remove any remaining grit and chop them. Add the broth, water and clam base to the mushroom-soaking liquid and bring to a simmer.
In a large pot, heat the oil and butter over moderately low heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and rice and stir until the rice begins to turn opaque, about 2 minutes. Add the wine and salt and cook, stirring, until the wine has been absorbed.
Stir in the dried mushrooms and 1/2 cup of the simmering stock; cook, stirring frequently, until the stock has been absorbed. The rice and the stock should bubble gently; adjust the heat as needed. Continue cooking the rice, adding the stock a ladleful at a time and allowing the rice to absorb the stock before adding the next ladleful. Cook the rice until almost tender, about 25 minutes, and then add the scallops. Cook, stirring, until the rice is tender and the scallops are done, about 5 minutes longer. The risotto should achieve a thick, creamy consistency, and you may not need to use all of the liquid.
Source: Slightly adapted from Food and Wine
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09.07.07
Posted in Dinner, Pastas, Seafood, Shellfish at 8:55 pm by julie
Last night’s dinner was seared scallops with rosemary beurre blanc and taglierini. The timing on this dish was the most important bit, because everything was really quick-cooking and needed to finish at about the same time. It’s one of those meals where it’s really best if Jeremy and Freyja stay well away from the kitchen, because if I even have to think about them while I’m cooking, they’ll be in my way.
I started by making the pasta dough. The recipe called for ¾ lb of fresh taglierini, which works out perfectly with my standard pasta recipe from Marcella:
1 C flour and 2 eggs. I decided on a whim to try out the white whole wheat flour’s affinity for pasta, and used only that. The dough that came together was on the stiff side and a bit hard to knead, so I added a bit of moisture by just wetting my hands and continuing to knead. That worked perfectly, allowing the dough to loosen up just a touch without getting gluey. I divided it into four pieces and ran it through my pasta machine up to nearly the thinnest setting with no problems at all, then laid the sheets out on a towel, just barely touching, to dry a bit while I worked on the rest of the meal.
The next step was making the beurre blanc. Got my last shallot chopped and everything reducing and ran out back to cut a sprig of rosemary from the garden. I upped the amount of sauce by 50% because some of the reviews indicated that there wasn’t enough sauce for them, and I am a bit of a sauce fiend myself. That, however, meant that I was short ¼ C of cream, so I added in some half-and-half with no ill results. While the sauce reduced, I got some water boiling for the pasta and cleaned the scallops. I was a bit worried about the quality of the scallops because there was quite a bit of milky liquid in the package with them. Jeremy picked them up from Costco and thought they would be fine because they felt firm, so I just rinsed them off and piled them up on paper towels to dry off as much as possible before searing. When the beurre blanc was reduced and ready for the addition of butter, I moved that pan to the back burner, tossed in the butter, and quickly heated a skillet for the scallops. I don’t have a large enough non-stick skillet, so I used my stainless one and plenty of olive oil. They did stick a bit, but not too badly, and I got a decent sear on them, so it all worked out just fine.
This is where the timing got really critical, though. The scallops only needed 1-2 minutes per side; I did them in two batches because of the size of my pan. While they cooked, I finished the beurre blanc and quickly ran my half-dried pasta sheets through the cutter. We’ve had trouble with the narrow cutter in the past because the dough would just all meld back together when it came out. Most of the time it came apart just fine in the water, but still, a nerve-wracking moment. This time, the sheets were just dry enough that they separated into perfect delicate noodles. I separated them on the towel as they came out, and when I finished cutting the heap, I ran back over to turn some scallops and take the lid off the boiling water. The noodles got unceremoniously dumped from the towel straight into the water for a quick bath, and I removed the last of the scallops from the skillet. A quick stir of the beurre blanc and a squeeze of lemon juice, and the pasta was ready to drain and toss with the sauce. I plated it up in nests, plunked some scallops on top, and there was dinner.
It was very tasty, and despite the flurry of energy required to cook all these items at once, it was also a rather quick meal to make. The scallops may have suffered a bit from my lack of attention, but they were a lovely golden brown on top and not rubbery, which is always my greatest fear when cooking them. The beurre blanc had a lot of flavor, but I think I must have used a heavy hand with the vinegar, because it was more acidic than I had anticipated. Still, it didn’t separate, and had good rosemary flavor without the pine needle texture because I just tossed in a whole sprig and removed it at the end. The white whole wheat pasta was wonderful, and I’ll definitely use that flour for pasta again. The dough was really durable to work with; I’d recommend keeping the sheets on the thinner side so you don’t end up with leathery pasta. But they cooked up beautifully, and didn’t look or taste at all of whole wheat… a good way to sneak it in. And you could get a more delicate pasta by using half white whole wheat and half AP flour.
Taglierini with Caramelized Scallops and Rosemary Beurre Blanc
3/4 lb fresh taglierini (eg: made with white whole wheat flour)
1 1/2 lb diver’s sea scallops
Olive oil
For beurre blanc:
3/4 C dry white wine
4 1/2 T white-wine vinegar
6 T chopped shallots
1 1/2 T chopped garlic
1 fresh rosemary sprig
3/4 cup heavy cream (or a combination of heavy cream and half-and-half)
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 T fresh lemon juice, or to taste
In an 8-quart kettle bring 7 quarts of salted water to a boil for pasta. Remove tough muscle from side of each scallop if necessary. Rinse scallops and dry thoroughly with paper towels.
Make beurre blanc: In a small heavy saucepan, simmer wine, vinegar, shallot, garlic, and rosemary until reduced to about 2 tablespoons. Add cream and simmer until liquid is reduced by about half; remove rosemary sprig. Add butter all at once and cook over moderately low heat, swirling pan constantly, just until creamy and butter is incorporated. (Sauce must not get hot enough to liquify. It should be the consistency of hollandaise.) Remove pan from heat and stir in lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.
Season scallops with pepper. In a 10- or 12-inch heavy skillet heat a tablespoon or so of oil over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Arrange half of scallops, without crowding, in skillet and cook, undisturbed, 1 to 2 minutes, or until undersides are golden brown. Turn scallops over and cook, undisturbed, 1 to 2 minutes, or until undersides are golden brown. Transfer scallops to a bowl and keep warm. Cook remaining scallops, adding more oil if necessary, in the same manner.
Meanwhile, cook pasta in boiling water until al dente (about 30 seconds for fresh) and drain in a colander. Transfer pasta to a heated bowl and pour sauce onto pasta. Add any liquid accumulated in bowl of scallops and toss. Divide pasta among heated plates. Arrange scallops on top of pasta and garnish with herbs, if desired.
Source: Slightly adapted from Epicurious.
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