Scallop

CIOPPINO, THE CLASSIC ITALIAN-AMERICAN FISH STEW for which San Francisco is famous, takes on a new life in the Northwest, with fennel and a hint of anchovy to boost the flavor. The mashed avocado is used as a thickener and adds a richness to the dish, but it’s optional. We use a variety of seafood, but feel free to use whatever is fresh in your fish market. We like to use true cod, also known as Pacific cod, because of its flaky texture and mild flavor. (Pacific cod is preferable to Atlantic cod, an overfished species.) True cod is often available frozen. If you find it fresh ask your fishmonger to bone it for you.

BRINY SCALLOPS AND WOODSY MUSHROOMS are tied together with the light, sweet note of sherry in this creamy fall pasta dish. We prefer hedgehog mushrooms because of their small size, but you could substitute other wild mushrooms if you prefer.

WHY IT’S LIGHT A brothy base, lean, mild white fish, and only one tablespoon olive oil keep this dish healthier than heavier seafood stews and chowders. Drizzle just a little extra olive oil over each serving to make the most of the oil’s fruity flavor.

GOOD TO KNOW Succulent yet lean, scallops can be seared on the stove without adding much—if any—butter or oil. Be sure to heat the skillet until very hot before adding the scallops, and wait until a crust forms before turning them, to prevent tearing. Browned butter (beurre noisette in French) and hazelnuts add richness, without tipping the scales.

The scallops we usually see in markets are the meaty round white adductor muscles that open and close scallop shells, propelling them through the water. Their roe, known as the coral, is also delicious, although it is rarely sold in this country; ask your fishmonger. Fresh scallops should smell sweet and should not be floating in liquid; if they are, they are definitely not fresh. Scallops can be cooked in many ways—fried, sautéed, poached, steamed, grilled, or baked—or eaten raw, in a ceviche or as scallop tartare. They are mild in flavor and best in simple preparations. (All scallops are sweet, but tiny bay scallops are especially so.) Before cooking scallops, remove the small vertical band of muscle attached to the side of the scallop. (This is sometimes called the foot.) Because scallops can absorb a great deal of liquid, don’t rinse them unless absolutely necessary. They cook very quickly: bay scallops take only a minute or two and larger scallops take only four to six. Large scallops to be sautéed or gratinéed can be cut horizontally into two or three disks before cooking. For a salad, cut them after they have been cooked.

Avocado gives this dairy-free soup its creamy texture. For a super-sophisticated presentation, serve it in chilled martini glasses and garnish each one with a drizzle of Mexican crema or crème fraîche. If you prefer a soup with a thinner consistency, add water until it’s exactly the way you like it.

Real bay scallops—which come from the waters between Cape Cod and Long Island—are in season through the winter and are an amazing treat (they’re also amazingly expensive). Though you can eat them raw, they’re also good cooked, but simply . . . very simply.

A dish that harnesses the complexity of miso to make a simple, quick, and highly flavored appetizer.

The sea scallop is one of the most perfect of nature’s convenience foods—almost nothing cooks faster. This is especially true if you opt to heat the mollusk until it remains rare in the center, as do most scallop admirers. Sea scallops are also large enough to stuff, not with bread crumbs or other fish, as is common with clams or lobsters, but with herbs, garlic, and other flavorings. As long as a scallop is a good inch across and roughly three-quarters of an inch thick, you can make an equatorial slit in it and fill it with any number of stuffings.

The scallop is ideal for fast cooking, because even a large scallop needs only to be browned on both sides to complete its cooking. A good sear on the outside caramelizes the shellfish’s natural sugars and leaves the interior cool, creamy, and delicious.

In seviche, the scallops are “cooked” by the acidity of the citrus.

The perfect whole-meal salad features as much flavor, texture, and bulk as any other well-prepared meal, and the fact that the base is a pile of greens makes me feel like I’m getting away with something. This one takes about ten minutes longer than a plain green salad and by changing the topping can be made in different ways every time, always with a minimum of effort. Use a blender for the dressing; it makes quick work of dispersing the sesame paste or peanut butter throughout the liquid ingredients—something that can be a real hassle with a fork or a whisk—creating a perfect emulsion. And because the blender purees the garlic and ginger, there’s no need to mince them; just peel, chop roughly, and drop them into the blender with the other ingredients. My first choice for topping this salad is grilled scallops—they’re almost ludicrously fast and easy, and their texture and flavor complement both greens and dressing—though shrimp, steak, or chicken thighs all could be substituted.

Sometimes a simple salad features such powerful flavors that by adding a couple of straightforward ingredients a whole meal appears as if by magic. Here the starting place is a Southeast Asian–style cucumber salad, with a dressing made from lime juice, lemongrass, fish sauce (called nam pla in Thailand and nuoc mam in Vietnam), and a few other strong seasonings. This dressing commingles perfectly with the natural juices of the cucumbers to moisten the greens. Top all with grilled scallops—or other fish or meat—and you create an easy one-dish meal whose flavor really jumps off the plate. It looks lovely, too, especially if your cucumbers are good enough to leave unpeeled. And (although not by design, I assure you), this salad is extremely low in fat.

You can make this with sea scallops or true bay scallops (which are rare and quite expensive); don’t bother to try it with the tiny calicos, which are guaranteed to overcook and become rubbery. If you look at a sea scallop, you’ll see a little stark-white hinge on one side; remove that if you have the time; it’s much chewier than the rest of the meat. And if you’re lucky enough to find scallops with their roe (it’s red or beige; you’ll know it when you see it), by all means use them here.

The usefulness of miso is nearly unlimited, and it can convert the simplest of ingredients into an exotic dish, a secret of much of Japanese cooking. Here the fermented soybean paste is combined with scallops and a little seasoning, then allowed to sit for a while before being grilled or broiled. It’s a traditional dish, in some parts of Japan the home-cooking equivalent of slathering something with barbecue sauce before cooking. For ease of use and strict authenticity, the miso should be thinned—it’s too thick to use straight—with mirin, the sweet, golden-colored wine made from rice (and Japan’s most important sweetener before the introduction of white sugar). Mirin, too, comes in a naturally brewed form called hon-mirin; it’s preferable to aji-mirin, which may be boosted with corn syrup; check the label. But the amount of mirin is so small, and its flavor in this dish so subtle, that you can use a fruity, sweet white wine in its place or even honey. If you can, try this with Asparagus Salad with Soy-Mustard Dressing (page 190) or a plain salad. And a bit of short-grain rice, of course.

Every seaside culture has its own fish stew, but in the West, bouillabaisse is the best known. Older recipes are quite specific about the kind of fish and the technique, but in my experience bouillabaisse, no matter how wonderful, is neither more nor less than a highly seasoned soup made with the day’s catch. So vary this recipe according to what you find at the store (or what you bring home from a day’s fishing).

Chawan-mushi is an egg custard flavored with stock and soy and laced with a number of tasty tidbits. In Tokyo, I had a bowl that contained tiny amounts of myoga (a potent member of the ginger family), shrimp, chicken, ginkgo nut, and yuzu, an Asian citrus fruit. None of these is essential, and you can substitute for any or all of them, as I do here. The fillings, called gu, are supposed to be whatever you have on hand. If you have covered ramekins, they are ideal for this preparation. But covering the pot works just as well.

True Ceviche (page 21) “cooks” fish by marinating it in an acidic dressing. But there is a similar dish in which the fish is simmered in boiling water first; it’s used most frequently with seafood that is tough when raw, but it’s also used—at least in this country—as a form of reassurance. It’s a bit of a cheat, but so what? There is little difference between the texture or quality of fish that has been marinated in lime and that of fish that has been cooked quickly (which is why marinating in lime is perfectly acceptable in the first place). Like all ceviche, this is a great starter.

In any coastal region where you find limes, you’ll find ceviche, going by one name or another. In Mexico, it’s frequently made with a combination of scallops, shrimp, conch, and octopus (the last two usually precooked to the point of tenderness), and those are all good fish for the mix. If you can find spanking-fresh fillets of your local white fish, you can use that here too, although scallops alone are easy and fabulous. (They’re also the safest shellfish to eat raw, but if the whole thing makes you nervous, see Mock Ceviche, page 35.) If you happen to have a couple of different colors of bell peppers, mix them; it’ll make the dish really sparkle.