I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years and that 2016 is the best year ever for you and your family! This New Years I tried a new recipe for Scallops by making a citrus ginger sauce serving them with a wild rice. They came out delicious. But there is a step that would be eliminated. I dusted the sea scallops with a seasoned flour that I often use to brown meats when searing on the stove top. The seasoned flour interfered with the scallops browning nicely. They got a little brown but not as much as we prefer. But of course we need to remember that with professional food photography they would prepare a lot of scallops picking out all the perfect ones for the photo shoot! How do you brown your scallops? Do you just use some olive oil heated in a heavy pan?
I like to make my sauce in a small sauce pan and then I poured a little over the sea scallops once they were done with reserving the remaining sauce for plating. The pan is fairly hot with some of the sauce evaporating – not sure if I would do this again or not as we like a lot of sauce! I adapted this recipe from Cooking Light. I used ground ginger but you could use fresh and of course there are a lot of other ingredients you could consider adding!
Sea Scallops Ingredients
1 tbsp. Olive Oil
3/4 pounds Sea Scallops
Orange Ginger Sauce Ingredients
1/4 cup Orange Juice
1 tbsp. Orange Liqueur
1/4 cup Mirin (sweet rice wine)
2 tbsp. Lemon Juice
2 tbsp. Soy Sauce, low sodium
1/2 tsp. Ground ginger
Salt
Finishing Sauce Ingredients
1/2 tsp. Arrowroot
1 tbsp. Butter
Garnish Ingredients
Top with Chives
Orange Ginger Sauce Preparation
Place all ingredients except for the arrowroot in a small sauce pan and heat. Just before serving add the butter then the arrowroot cooking for a few minutes to thicken the sauce.
Sea Scallops Preparation
Rinse the scallops and dry thoroughly. Heat olive oil in a heavy pan. Place scallops in pan and cook on both sides until they reach the desired temperature. Plate scallops and top with orange ginger sauce and chives or your choice of garnish. Then serve immediately!
