It's my 28th birthday today, and seeing as it's a Monday - we are postponing any celebrations till the weekend. Actually, this is the first time in four years I will be throwing a birthday party - it seemed like the year to do it because we are housesitting, so we will definitely have the space to accomodate people! More on that later though.
Being that it's my first post, I thought I would keep it to a pretty simple dinner - I have a hard enough time keeping up with recipes and cooking while just watching, let alone trying to write at the same time! Okay I'm lying just a bit, there is definitely some vinho verde involved, with some more nice wine to follow.
Main tonight is seared east coast scallops with fiddle heads and beurre blanc. Greg (said significant other in my "about" section) says: that's too simple, is he going to have to try harder?? No I say, that's the point, keep it simple tonight so I can follow along!
It was great to finally see fresh scallops at our local shop, as well as fiddleheads that they have from time to time. First thing to know about fiddleheads is that you can't actually eat them raw - they look like a mini fern and must be cooked first. For dinner tonight, they are blanched first for about 5 or 6 minutes till they are tender. Then put them in an ice and water bath immediately to stop them from cooking any more and being over done.
As I'm asking all of these cooking questions, rather than just sitting at the kitchen island drinking wine, Greg is realizing that there may be a side effect of me writing out the recipes that mostly come from his head - I might actually become a better cook...we will have to see about that. The difference between him and I is, although I am terrible at following recipes, I always need measurements and times. Greg operates with terms like, "till they are done", "use a bit", which just puts me in a spin because I am foreve trying to figure out what those terms mean to him, let alone actually cooking!
Back to the bday recipe. Dry the scallops with paper towel. Next step is for the beurre blanc: cook a couple of chopped shallots until soft, with unsalted butter (always unsalted). If you are even asking yourself the question, "but can I use margarine?" please do not read on because you clearly don't won't be able to enjoy these recipes - sorry. Add a bayleaf and some kosher salt. I should have started this blog by writing a section on "the essentials" so I could rant about the greatness of kosher salt and unsalted butter. Later...
Add "some" white wine (classic case of Greg vs. Vanessa measuring - this is approximately a cup). Let it reduce, cook down a bit, until there are only a few tablespoons of liquid remaining. Get a stick of cold butter and chop in to small cubes, keep chilled. In a large heavy bottomed pan, add olive oil, finely diced shallots, and a pinch of salt, on low heat - this is for the fiddleheads for later. Strain the shallots, butter and wine mixture, making sure to push down on the shallots, and put back in your sauce pot. Note you are keeping the liquid and chucking the shallots, do not throw this out! Add the butter cubes to this liquid, whisking the whole time. Heat a large heavy bottomed pan with grapeseed oil (its hot enough when it ripples on the surface), add scallops. Add fiddleheads to their pan, turn up the heat to medium, just to reheat. Once scallops have browned on one side (about 1.5 mins), turn over and add a knob of butter. Let the scallops sear on the other side and turn off the heat. Place the reheated fiddleheads on the center of the plate, scallops on top, surrounded by the beurre blanc.
We enjoyed this with a bottle of chenin blanc + viognier from Pine Ridge, 2010. Cheers, Vanessa.
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