SAVORY SCALLOPS

 

                                                    Savory scallops

           Scallops, unlike other bivalves like clams and oysters, are harvested in winter months. So, from early December to March, we may expect those delicious plump bites of seafood to appear in stores and on our dinner plates. Scallops may be considered a luxury food because of their price is driven by methods of harvesting, often by hand and each bivalve yields only a small edible muscle.

Scallops are a valuable seafood harvest for Maine, the coastal waters being home to bay scallops, with trawlers and deep-sea divers bringing up the larger sea scallops to our tables. The home cook needs to look for ‘dry’ scallops that are natural and will give a flavorful texture when cooked. Cheaper ‘wet’ scallops may appear plumper at the store but are treated with artificial preservatives that make scallops difficult to sear quickly and often add ‘off’ flavors. Overcooking scallops makes them tough!

          The following recipes all use ‘dry’ scallops, can be used with both bay and sea scallops, but very large scallops may need to be cut in half before cooking. 

                                                  Scallops Grenoblaise

          This recipe was adapted from an old issue of Food and Wine and retains the strange title of a city in France notable for its leading scientific research Centre and surrounding Alps. Serves two.

          Peel the outer skin and pith from a lemon. Cut between membranes, remove the segments and cut them in ¼ inch pieces. Squeeze any remaining juice on the pieces and set aside.

          Sprinkle 12 large scallops with salt and pepper. Heat 2 tbsp. olive oil in a nonstick skillet on medium heat and sear scallops for 3 minutes, turn and cook until barely opaque for another 2 minutes. Transfer to a shallow bowl and cover to keep warm.

          Melt 2 tbsp. butter in the same pan on medium high heat, add 2 tbsp. drained chopped capers and 1-2 tbsp. chopped mild chilies. Cook until fragrant for 1-2 minutes, stir in lemon segments and 2 tbsp. chopped fresh Italian parsley, ¼ tsp. salt and ¼ tsp. lemon pepper. Cook to heat and pour sauce over scallops. Serve on wide pasta with steamed snow peas for added color.

                                              Scallops with pine nuts

          Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Generously butter 4 shallow ramekins. Divide 1 lb. scallops among the dishes. Serves four.

          In a small skillet melt 1tbsp, butter and cook 4 finely chopped scallions on medium heat for 2 minutes with stirring. Melt 3 more tbsp. butter and add 2 tbsp. pine nuts, 1 tbsp. chopped fresh dill, 1/3 cup fine breadcrumbs and 1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice. Mix all well and spread over the scallops in the ramekins. Bake for 10 minutes until bubbling at edges. Serve with lemon slices and a side of pasta, rice or just crusty French bread.

          For dessert, here is an interesting apple pie with cranberries, that would grace any holiday table.

                                             Dutch apple-cranberry pie

          Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Prepare the streusel topping by blending ½ cup plus 1 tbsp. flour, ½ tsp. cinnamon, ¼ tsp. nutmeg and ¼ cup brown sugar, packed. Blend in with a pastry cutter or 2 knives ¼ cup butter until it forms small crumbles, then stir in ¼ cup Grapenuts.

          Lin a 9-inch pie pan with one ready made rolled pie crust. Fit it well in bottom and flute on the edges of the pan. Blend ¼ cup sugar with 1 tbsp. flour and sprinkle over the bottom crust. Wash, pare, quarter and thinly slice 2 apples over the sugar, sprinkle with ½ cup dried cranberries and another layer of 2-3 sliced apples, making sure the pie mounds a bit in the middle. Sprinkle all with ½ cup sugar and the streusel mix. Bake 15 minutes at 450 degrees, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 30 minutes. Remove pie to a rack to cool for 2-3 hrs. and serve.

          Scallops may be pricey, but winter is a good time to savor these delightful morsels at their best. “All good things come in small packages!”

 (I. Winicov Harrington lives in coastal Maine and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day:” and “Uncharted Journey from Riga”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)

 

 

QUICK MEALS TO THE RESCUE

                                    Quick meals to the rescue

           Our warm fall and late November Thanksgiving have conspired to shock me with the sneaky approach of December and its holiday activities. It is not a case of ignoring the calendar on my refrigerator. It is rather a refusal to rush any holiday before its time that now finds me facing decorating, shopping, writing cards, Christmas baking and entertaining crammed into just three weeks. It is difficult not to leave everyday meals to become an afterthought to all these other activities, allowing our nutrition to suffer under stress.

          One solution is to prepare something nourishing that can be served for multiple meals and the other is to find recipes that combine a number of ingredients and are quickly cooked. Nourishing soups are wonderful for both lunch and dinner and made in a large quantity can be quickly reheated as needed. Mild Portuguese sausage linguica and Swiss chard give my soup additional flavor.

 

                                     Lentil-Swiss chard and linguica soup

          In a large pot heat 2 tbsp. olive oil to shimmering and stir in 2 oz. prosciutto sliced in ¼ inch strips. Fry to crisp with occasional stirring and set on paper towels to drain. This will make an elegant garnish for the finished soup.

          Stir in 1 chopped onion and 1 chopped stalk of celery in the same oil plus 1 diced parsnip and 1 carrot. Cook vegetables with stirring for about 8 minutes without browning.  Add 3 chopped garlic cloves, 1 large bay leaf, 1 tsp. thyme, 2 tsp. smoked paprika and cook until fragrant for 1 minute. Add 1 cup red wine, 6 cups chicken broth, 1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes with basil, 1 ½ cups rinsed French lentils and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer, cover pot and cook for 45 minutes.

          Remove from heat, discard bay leaf and after cooling, purée 1/3 of the soup in the blender and return to the rest in the pot to boil. Add 3 cups of washed and torn chard leaves. Remove casings from 2 linguica sausages, dice and add to the soup. Cook for 3 or more minutes until the chard is soft. Serve hot garnished with some of the crisped prosciutto.

          Quickly browned meat in an interesting sauce, served over rice or pasta makes for an easy and quick supper. The next recipe is for chicken but could be used as well for leftover turkey’s second act, without the necessity to brown the meat. 

 

                              Chicken velouté with artichokes and sundried tomatoes

          Cut up, depending on size, 1-2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts in ½ inch strips, stir fry to brown in 1 tbsp. olive oil and 1 tbsp. butter in a large pan and set aside. You should have at least 2 cups of cooked chicken. Add 1 tbsp. butter to the same pan and sauté 2 sliced large shallots for 4 minutes. Stir in 2 tbsp. flour and ¼ tsp. ground cloves to make a roux, slowly add 2 cups chicken broth to make the sauce. When sauce is thickened, stir in 2 oz shredded Gruyère cheese and ¼ cup shredded Parmesan and ¼ cup sundried tomatoes cut in thin strips. Simmer for 2 minutes. Drain 1 can of artichoke hearts. Stir artichokes and the chicken in the sauce and heat for 2 minutes. Stir in 3 tbsp. heavy cream and when heated serve on pasta.

           Desert can still be a part of a quick meal. Instant pudding mixes that require only 2 cups of milk and 2 minutes of whisking can present an appetizing choice when garnished with fruit or nuts as found with a pistachio pudding with grape and pistachio nut topping.

          “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date. No time to say hello, good-bye …” sings the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland and the holiday season may sometimes seem just like that. Instead of being overwhelmed and distracted by tasks at hand, one could try to take a deep breath and appreciate the joy of the season imbued in those same tasks done with love.

 (I. Winicov Harrington lives in coastal Maine and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day:” and “Uncharted Journey from Riga”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)

 

 

 

 

HOLIDAY JOYS, PAST AND PRESENT

 

                                Holiday joys, past and present

           The end of November each year comes with a spark of excitement for the coming Holidays and unwittingly brings up memories of those past.  It is a time of the year filled with traditions, many specific to cultures, nationalities and families. For anyone older than twenty, such memories demonstrate not only the comfort of tradition but also point out how specifics of these traditions evolve with time while retaining the seminal sentiments of the events we celebrate with candlelight gatherings, music, food and gifts we exchange.

          Personally, I have adapted from the European focus on Christmas Eve with live candles on a tree, children reciting poetry before the family feast, and the arrival of Father Christmas with a large sack full of surprise toys or birch switches for naughty children, with adults attending church at midnight. My own sons had electric lights on the tree, church early enough for all to attend, Santa appeared miraculously during the night to fill stockings and bring presents for Christmas day with its celebratory feast. Birch switches had disappeared; and for my boys’ stockings, one particularly rambunctious year, I found it impossible to even find a few lumps of coal in Philadelphia.

           Traditional music and the lighting of candles has fortunately survived across continents with love and good cheer. Food traditions are usually family oriented and so we have pīragi (Latvian bacon and onion filled rolls) still every year, turkey has replaced traditional goose, and some modern recipes appear as well. Shopping of course has changed dramatically, but I still remember with nostalgia taking my boys to downtown Philadelphia in December to walk on Market and Chestnut streets to view the magnificent displays of toys set in winter scenes in Wanamaker’s and other department store windows, and to listen to the daily Wanamaker organ concert of seasonal music in the center court of the store.  There is something to be said about the joyous ambience as we join others and stroll the streets in our small towns even today, with seasonal decorations by local shopkeepers.

          With all the abundance of seasonal catalogues, infinite variety of internet shopping in addition to local stores, choosing a gift becomes a quandary. For a cook choosing among the plethora of gadgets is fraught with problems and can be expensive. Would anyone like a tabletop pizza oven?  Besides the staggering price, counterspace in most kitchens comes at a premium. A good meat thermometer can be useful, but it might be wise to subtly inquire beforehand. Food and exotic spices on the other hand are always welcome and inspirational, as my friend’s gift of English treacle some years ago led me to baking proper English gingerbread.

          My standby gift for attending an evening gathering at friends is to take home made scones for the hosts next morning’s breakfast, accompanied with an interesting jam.

                                    Ginger-currant-pecan scones

          Line large baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a food processor whisk together 3 cups all-purpose flour, ½ cup sugar and 1 tbsp. baking soda. Add 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter cut in 12 tbsp. and pulse 15 times. Pour mix in a large bowl and toss with ¾ cup currants and ½ cup chopped pecans. Combine liquid in another bowl: ¾ cups milk, ¼ cup sour cream, 1 egg, 1 tsp. freshly grated peeled ginger, 1 tsp. vanilla and 1 tsp. lemon flavoring. Pour this into the flour and mix with a fork to combine. Turn out on floured board, knead to blend, divide in half and transfer to the prepared pan. Press each half to form a 6 ½ inch disk and cut in 6 wedges. Brush with heavy cream and sprinkle each with 1 tbsp. demerara sugar. Bake 20 minutes at 425 degrees and serve with jam.  

The following cookies are a tradition at our house. It is my mother’s recipe which she baked each Christmas until her 93^rd year and is reprinted from my column in 2021.

                                             Latvian Christmas cookies

                    Beat 1 cup (½ lb.) unsalted butter to light with an electric mixer, then beat in 1 cup sugar. Beat in 4 egg yolks one at a time and 1 tsp. vanilla. Using a wooden spoon, thoroughly stir in scant 3 cups flour mixed with 2/3 tsp. baking powder. Chill the dough ½ hour.

          Roll out portions of the dough ¼ inch thick, cut out forms with cookie cutters or moons and half-moons with a glass. Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet and baste with a glaze of 2 egg yolks beaten with 1 tbsp. water. Bake at 375 degrees for 12-13 minutes until golden. Cool on the pan for 5 minutes before removing with a spatula.

          For joyous Holidays to all different traditions, here is a quote from “Fiddler on the Roof” by Topol and Stern: “Without our traditions, our lives would be shaky as… a fiddler on the roof”.                       

(I. Winicov Harrington lives in coastal Maine and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day:” and “Uncharted Journey from Riga”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)