Date Night :: Scallops

Sometimes, Chris and I find ourselves wanting to get a little more adventurous in the kitchen, and decide to get some really good ingredients and stay in for the night. This past weekend, we found ourselves at Whole Foods, and they had some gorgeous scallops. So we snagged some up and went home to cook!

A couple things to talk about though before jumping into the recipe. First of all, the recipe calls for a cup of white wine. By no means should you use the best wine you can find (unless you really want to make this an unusually expensive dinner...) but when cooking, a good rule is not to use any wine you wouldn't drink to accompany the meal. Our favorite wine to use for cooking is Columbia Crest Two Vines Chardonnay. It's got good flavor, makes a great Tuesday-night bottle of wine, and is perfect for cooking.



The next note I want to make is in regards to one other ingredient below: chicken base. Chicken base is a condensed paste that when added to water, creates chicken stock. I personally like it better than bouillon because bouillon is PACKED with sodium, but base is not. Also the first ingredient in base is chicken, which is more than I can say for those salty cubes. It can't be found everywhere, but I've seen it more and more places like spice shops and specialty food stores lately.

Also, Pioneer Woman uses it, so if you don't want to take my word for it, we can all take hers.


Pioneer Woman


Scallops with White Wine Sauce
we made this up

1 tbs olive oil
2 medium shallots
1 medium yellow onion
1 celery rib
1 cup white wine (chardonnay)
1 pinch red pepper flakes
1 pinch white pepper
2 tsp chicken base
Lemon to finish


Dice the shallots, onion, and celery.



Heat the oil in a pan, and then toss in the shallots, onion, and celery. Cook for 3-5 minutes, until they soften.

Add wine, red pepper flakes, white pepper, and chicken base.



Bring it to a light simmer, and then turn your attention to the scallops. Rinse them and pat them dry with a paper towel. Wet scallops (or wet any meat for that matter) will not brown nicely.



Get another non-stick pan and add some oil, bring to medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot, set the scallops in. Cook them, undisturbed, for 2-3 minutes, then flip.



Leave the scallops in the pan until they are brown on both sides and start to break apart slightly along the edge. Do not overcook them, or they'll be little rubbery discs.

Move the scallops over into your white wine sauce pan, squeeze a lemon slice over top, and serve!




Don't forget, today's the last day of the Craftee McGee and Paint Me A Picture giveaways!