Frozen scallops & Ina Garten: She lifted them out of medocrity with Make Ahead Coquilles St. Jacque

M

marilynfl

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Had a pound of sea scallops from Walmart ($19.99) and COULD NOT FIND OUT if they were considered WET or DRY. For that price, I thought they might be DRY.

FYI: Publix says ALL of their scallops are DRY (fresh or frozen) but I'd already bought the bag from Walmart.

Thawed it out in the refrigerator then let them sit in milk for a day. I'm not sure exactly why...it's just a habit I've gotten into with cod.

Halved her recipe with the following exceptions:

Used chicken broth rather than seafood stock.

Used LESS salt (I feel she tends to oversalt everything)

My Gruyere had been mysteriously nibbled away so I used Irish Skellish (sp) cheddar.

Added slivered organic dried tomatoes. THAT was a good addition as it added a mini tart bite to the creaminess.

Used garam masala rather than curry spice...added it to butter/shallots.

I really liked the idea that you could prep it a full-day ahead and it was fine. I made four gratin dishes with the 1 pound of scallops (each one quartered), baked two the night I made it and the other two last night. You couldn't tell the difference.

Also, my gratin dishes are long 8" ovals, so you could make at least 16 smaller appetizer size versions with the same pound of scallops.

http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017099-ina-gartens-make-ahead-coquilles-st-jacques

 
Ina Garten's Make Ahead Coquilles St Jacques

Ingredients
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups seafood stock, clam juice or low-sodium chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream
¼ teaspoon curry powder
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
3 large shallots, peeled and diced, approximately 1 cup
12 ounces cremini mushrooms, cleaned, stems discarded, sliced
¼ cup brandy or Cognac
1 ½ cups fresh bread crumbs (approximately 6 slices white bread, crusts removed, finely chopped or pulsed in a food processor)
¼ cup minced flat-leaf parsley
5 ounces Gruyère cheese, grated
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 pounds bay scallops, or quartered sea scallops, abductor muscles removed

Preparation

Step 1 Set a saucepan over medium heat, and melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in it. When it foams, add the flour, and cook for approximately 4 minutes, whisking constantly. Add the stock, and whisk again, until it is smooth and thick. Add the cream, curry powder, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Bring the sauce just to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for approximately 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

Step 2 Put 3 tablespoons butter in a large sauté pan set over medium heat. When it melts and foams, add the shallots, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are clear and tender, approximately 5 minutes. Add the sliced mushroom caps, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until they have released their liquid and are just starting to brown. Add the brandy or Cognac, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until the alcohol has mostly evaporated. Add a teaspoon of salt to the mixture and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, and stir again to combine. Add mushroom mixture to the cream sauce, and set aside.

Step 3 Combine the bread crumbs, parsley and Gruyère in a large bowl, stir to combine, then moisten the mixture with the olive oil, stirring again to combine.

Step 4 Use last tablespoon of butter to grease 6 1 1/2-cup gratin dishes. Divide the scallops evenly among them and top with equal amounts of the cream and mushroom sauce. Top each gratin dish with a handful or two of the bread-crumb mixture. Place dishes on a sheet tray, cover gently with foil or plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to a day.

Step 5 When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 400. Remove cover from sheet tray, and place in the oven for approximately 20 minutes, or until the tops are lightly browned and bubbling and the scallops are cooked through.

 
deb, the comment section lists quite a few substitutions. Apparently a lot of people have scallop

allergies. I thought that was just shrimp allergy.

 
Make ahead Coquille St. Jacques...

When I was in college, I worked at a country French bistro connected to a vineyard/winery on the Ohio River. One of their specialties was CSJ. I watched them make it and learned how to do it. To this day it is one of my all time favorite dishes. I frequently get asked to cook when I'm visiting friends, and this is one I pull out since I have it in my head (and everyone is amazed that one can just go into someone's kitchen and whip up a CSJ!). But it was such a simple and wonderful preparation.

The restaurant gently poached the scallops in fish stock and white wine. Barely a minute. Then they folded them into a rich Mornay using the fish stock/white wine court bouillion and Swiss cheese. The Mornay was on the thick side.

To prepare, they piped mashed potatoes around the border of large scallop shells, filled the center with a scoop of the scallops in Mornay, then place a slice of Swiss cheese on top.

After the trays of shells were filled, each was lightly wrapped in plastic cling wrap and sent off to the freezer.

They would take out several before dinner to begin thawing, and then when one was ordered, they would unwrap and place in the oven to reheat and lightly brown the top and finish with a light dusting of sweet paprika and a scattering of freshly minced parsley.

That's the way I've been making them for over 30 years now. But I have never quite reached the freezer step for some reason.

 
Glad to see this dish getting some love. It's such a wonderful recipe. If you look on the bag of

scallops, there should be ingredients and it should just list scallops. If there's another ingredient, they have a preservative of some kind in them. Sodium tripolyphosphate is one such ingredient but there may be different names. Costco sells 2 lb bags of sea scallops with no additive under their Kirkland brand but they're not always available year round. They've been in the stores here for 6 months now but I noticed stock is getting low.

 
...and special thanks to Sarah Chase, who made me crave scallops and taught me about abductor

muscles. The 4 "dry" sea scallops I bought fresh from Publix ($8.88 for FOUR SCALLOPS) did not have any, but at least half of the one-pound bag from Walmart did. Thanks to her careful instructions, I knew exactly what to look for and what to do. Otherwise, I would have left them on as they are the same color and density as the scallop portion.

 
It is amazing people how many folks have told me they dislike scallops because they are tough...

when I ask if they removed the abductor muscle, they say, "the what?" That little sucker ruins many dishes for some folks. I am not sure where I learned about it but I did have the same experience with the tough scallops until I figured it out.

 
Just snuck cooked scallops and shrimp leftovers into the freezer

with the hope of a killer way to use them. Thank-you - this will work with tweeking next week. Right now we're stacked up with soup makings and odd leftovers from a power outage at our son's (where our satellite 3rd fridge lives). Making Eggs Benedict tonight (10 packages of Wolferman's English muffins - various flavors - to eat through) and pasta primavera for dinner tomorrow with tomatoes leftover from last year's harvest, zucchini rounds, a bag of defrosted broccoli/red pepper mix and mushrooms I sautéed and froze to make your wonderfully quick and tasty shrimp and grits REALLY quickly smileys/wink.gif Colleen

 
Re: English muffins. When the kids were home I would make them pizzas

on English muffins, sometimes as a snack when they came home from school or for a quick dinner with a big green veggie salad.

 
Yes, that was always good for them. Also made the MacDonald's egg mcmuffin for them

for breakfast--poached, scrambled or fried egg with a slice of ham or some bacon.

 
I am sure your version is much better than McD's. Tried it one time, a very long time ago

and it was awful, dumped it into the garbage at home. Not good. Not a fan of fast food places.

 
I make English muffin pizzas and freeze them on a cookie sheet

then store them in the freezer in zip loc bags. Easy to nuke in the microwave for a snack for the kids.

 
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