Cooking Journey: Lemon Garlic Sautéed Scallops

 

WHEN I TELL YA I'VE BEEN COOKIN', YA GURL HAS BEEEEEN COOKING! Lemon garlic sautéed scallops?? WHO AM I??? Celebrated, celebrity chef?? MIGHT AS WELL BE! Okay, I'm pushing it... But I have surprised even myself throughout this journey. 

This recipe I think includes the fewest amount of pictures because there weren't really that many steps to this dish. 

Pictured above are essentially (if not all???) the ingredients I used in this recipe! Olive oil, lemon juice, white wine (I just happened to have Pino Grigio on hand, any white wine will do!), salt, pepper, minced garlic, dried parsley (this recipe calls for fresh but it's just for garnish so I didn't bother buying fresh!), margarine and scallops! 

The first thing I did after organizing the ingredients for this dish, was took the scallops out of their package, put them on a plate and I seasoned them with salt and pepper (pictured above). 

The next thing I did was, I added a little bit of olive oil to a pan and heated it over medium-high heat. I added the scallops in a single layer, to the pan once the oil was heated slightly. You wan to ensure the scallops aren't touching one another or over-lapping, the space between each scallop allows it to cook thoroughly and evenly! They don't take look so ensuring they have enough space on the pan is important. 

My pan, as you can see above, clearly gets hotter on one side vs. the other, so when I flipped my scallops I tried to reposition the pan so everything was cooked evenly. I let the scallops cook for about 1.5 minutes and then flipped them. You only want to cook them until they form a golden, brown crust on the bottom! If you overcook scallops they will be rubbery and very difficult to chew! NOT what you want. When I flipped the scallops I let them cook for just a little bit longer than previously. I probably waited a minute and 45 seconds. I probably could have let them cook for a minute 45 on each side but, you live and you learn. This really was my first time ever cooking scallops and I think they still came out GREAT! (As did my parents, thank you very much.) 

Once the scallops are flipped and cooked on both sides, you then remove them from the pan and place them on a plate. I then melted 2 tablespoons of margarine in the pan, once that was melted I added the garlic and cooked until fragrant (about one minute). After adding the butter and garlic, you'll want to add your white wine and cook it until it reduces by half. This literally means, cook the wine until it looks like there's half the amount of liquid than when you started. I want to say this "goes without saying" but, when I first started cooking, I literally didn't know what I was looking for or what that meant. Thankfully Google exists but I was like, "until the wine reduces?" so.. There you go! 

Above is a picture of the sauce with the butter, garlic and white wine. Once the white wine reduces by half, you add the remaining tablespoon of butter and lemon juice. Once everything is all combined, I removed the pan from the heat and the recipe instructs you to add the scallops back to the pan while it's still hot, just to re-heat them. You really want to make sure you turn the heat off and remove the pan from the element, if your scallops continue to cook at this point, as I mentioned above, they will be very chewy and unpleasant. So be warned! 

Below is a picture of the scallops in the pan, removed from the heat! 

I just used a spoon to, well, for lack of a better term, spooned the sauce on top of the scallops! Wanted to make sure they were nice and coated in the lemon butter! 

I paired the scallops with a greek salad (very random but when you have a craving, you gotta satisfy it.) These take next to NO time to make (literally less than 2 minutes on each side in a frying pan), how long this recipe takes you depends on how fast you can make the sauce! 

There you have it! Likely going to be one of the easier recipes I make. I think the recipe for this is simple but cooking the scallops is the difficult part! Nothing to be afraid of, if I can do it, you definitely could. Main thing is, WATCH WHILE THEY COOK! Don't try and turn your back, not even for a moment! Cooking scallops is like putting something in the oven on broil. You look away for one second and BAM it's burnt. Trust your gut, watch your scallops, look for that golden crust on the bottom and you'll be fine! 

HERE'S THE RECIPE! 

Do you like seafood? What's your favourite? I love scallops but they're one of those things I always get at a restaurant because I never thought I'd be able to make them myself! Little did I know they're relatively easy! 

Did you read my last blog? I made a cute little appetizer! I tried making CRISPY FRIED JALAPEÑO AND PICKLES! <--- You can click there or HERE! For that recipe! Catch you on the next one! 

xo