Sautéed Scallops with Asparagus
August 04, 2019
This is one of the recipes Ruhlman provides in his classic book Ruhlman’s Twenty to illustrate the “Sauté” technique. I love how visually impressive this dish is and how quick the actual preparation is. You could easily scale this dish up for a larger group by Sautéing the scallops in larger batches on a larger frying pan.
Ingredients
- 1 pound Scallops
- 1 pound asparagus
- 4 tablespoons butter
- canola oil
This recipe can be suitable for the following restricted diets:
- Dash (with modifications)
Equipment
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.
- Trim the rough ends of the asparagus.
- Lower the asparagus into the boiling water to blanche for 3 minutes
- Use tongs to transfer the asparagus to an ice bath, and drain after 1 minute
- Snap the tips of the asparagus off the stalks and set aside for garnish.
- Blend the asparagus stalks with 1/2 cup of the reserved blanching water to make a puree.
- Put the puree in a stock pot and simmer on very low heat while you prepare the scallops.
- Dry the scallops on paper towels.
- Heat a layer of canola oil in the frying pan. When it begins to smoke, carefully lay the scallops in the pan, being careful not to crowd them. After about 90 seconds, sprinkle with sea salt and flip using tongs. The seared scallops should have a pleasant brown caramelized crust and should release easily from the pan.
- Sauté all the scallops in this manner in batches and transfer to a paper towel lined plate.
- When all the scallops are finished, you can finish the sauce by raising the heat slightly and adding half of the asparagus tips and all of the butter to the sauce pan, stirring to incorporate the butter into the sauce.
- Plate the dish by laying down a layer of the asparagus puree and topping with 6-7 large scallops. Garnish with the remaining asparagus tips and serve immediately.
This recipe was adapted from:
Written by Will Chiong who lives and works in New York building useful things.