Recipes November 28, 2021

Seared Scallops with Herb Butter

Scallops are probably my favorite seafood item — I used to order them, quite consistently, at restaurants when I was in the mood to splurge a bit but still always felt somewhat guilty spending so much on (at least, quantitatively) so little; so I thought I would try to see if I could cook them for myself. I was delighted to find that scallops are relatively straightforward to prepare! So much so, in fact, that I no longer order scallops when I eat out, since it’s much more cost-effective to cook them myself.

I like to sear them in a (rather eponymously named) herb butter that you can make by mixing together a stick of room temperature butter, about 2 sprigs of thyme, and 1 sprig of rosemary, in a small bowl with a spoon. The quantity of thyme and rosemary listed is an approximation — I don’t normally measure and usually go by eye, so you can add more or less as you see fit.

Scoop the butter mix onto a sheet of parchment paper, and roll the ends together to create a makeshift sort of cylinder (it looks a bit like a giant piece of candy, doesn’t it?), and then refrigerate it for about an hour. Personally, I like to make the butter a day or so in advance so that I can refrigerate it overnight; but you can just as easily refrigerate it for less time, or even use it as is at room temperature, depending on your preferences. You also won’t need all of it, so you can save it in the fridge for your daily cooking — I use this herb butter on anything from potatoes, to salmon, to biscuits.

Moving on to the scallops, a few quick notes:

If necessary, remove the side muscle before cooking them (a little flap of tissue on the side).
After rinsing the scallops under cold water, make sure to pat them as dry as possible — this will help you get that nice sort of brown crust on the top and bottom.
When cooking the scallops, make sure they do not touch each other; if they do, they may create steam that will make it less likely you will get the aforementioned nice brown crust.

Bearing that all in mind, heat a clean pan over high heat. When the pan is hot, add in about 2 tablespoons of the herb butter, and an extra sprig of thyme. Lower the heat to medium high, then place the scallops onto the pan.

Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, then cook for about 2 minutes before flipping them over. Lightly sprinkle the other side with salt and pepper, and then cook for another 2 minutes. I season them as they are cooking because in my experience, if you sprinkle them with salt beforehand, they dry up and develop unsightly white spots on their surface.

Remove the scallops from the pan and serve hot. I like to serve them with a little bit of lemon for the sake of flavor, and some microgreens for the sake of appearance — to each their own!

And that’s really all you need to have a nice scallop dinner. It’s much less pricey than ordering the same at a restaurant — scallops sell for about $25–29 per pound if you buy them at the supermarket, versus maybe $30–40 for a single plate if you eat out — so I can’t recommend highly enough that you give cooking them yourself a whirl!

Photography by Wilson Tang