3 Chef Ideas That Make This Elegant French Dish Even Extra Flavorful

Coquilles Saint-Jacques merely means “scallops” in French, however it is also a standard shorthand for referring to this particular preparation, wherein meaty and candy scallops are coated in a velvety sauce, topped with breadcrumbs, and broiled till browned on high. It is a traditional of the French kitchen that’s continuously discovered on the menus of bistros and brasseries, and makes for a splendidly elegant appetizer when entertaining at house, particularly when served on a scallop shell.

My recipe is designed to honor essentially the most conventional variations of this dish, whereas taking a number of liberties to spice up taste and resolve among the larger points I had when following extra conventional variations carefully. Earlier than I clarify my departures from custom and why I took them, I am going to first undergo the weather of this dish to clarify kind of what’s typical, although take into account it is a dish that takes many varieties in numerous kitchens and fingers—there isn’t any one single method to make it.

Traditional Components of Coquilles Saint-Jacques

Most iterations of this dish have a couple of key issues in frequent:

• Scallops: Cannot actually have a scallop dish with out scallops, proper? In essentially the most excellent of worlds, we might all have the ability to discover stay scallops within the shell, that are the sweetest and freshest, and include a shell that doubles as a built-in, very fairly serving dish. However the actuality is that only a few of us can get stay scallops a lot of the time. That is okay, we will nonetheless make this work.

  First, you should definitely purchase dry-packed sea scallops, not ones which have been brined. Brined scallops are swollen with brining resolution, which causes them to dump liquid within the pan when cooked, stopping browning. Even worse, they style like absolute crap, nothing just like the amazingly candy flesh of a correct dry scallop.

  The scallops are historically poached gently in a white wine–based mostly courtroom bouillon (the time period for a frivolously acidic, fragrant broth used for such functions). This poaching liquid is then used within the sauce (see under).

  As for serving, for those who actually need to do it on the shell such as you see within the photos right here, you may order cleaned scallop shells for meals use on-line. You too can skip that and simply use small ramekins and even small gratin dishes.

• Sauce: The sauce for coquilles Saint-Jacques is usually a velouté, which is the French time period for a velvety roux-thickened sauce constituted of a inventory or broth, although milk or cream could be added as properly. If it helps, consider velouté like a béchamel however with some sort of inventory or broth instead of a lot of the milk.

  Many recipes use the scallop’s white wine–based mostly poaching liquid to make the velouté, thickening it with a butter-and-flour roux, enriching it with cream or milk, after which additional thickening and enriching it with an egg yolk. Many coquilles Saint-Jacques recipes additionally add mushrooms and shallots to the sauce.

• Golden Topping: As soon as spooned into the serving vessels, the scallops and sauce are normally topped with a breadcrumb combination, usually with a cheese like Gruyère combined in, after which broiled till golden and crispy—scrumptious proof that cheese and seafood can certainly go collectively.

I began my recipe improvement by making this recipe a lot nearer to this extra conventional method, however I bumped into some points that I wished to resolve. First, I discovered that the scallops too simply acquired misplaced when poached and coated in such sturdy different elements.

Second, I discovered the sauce too sharp. It lacked a savory depth; even rounded out with milk, the difficulty persevered. I concluded that basing the sauce on a courtroom bouillon made primarily of dry white wine was contributing to this.

After some experimenting, the ultimate model of my recipe makes an attempt to deal with this, admittedly by departing from custom within the course of. I am comfy with that—authenticity for its personal sake is not one thing I am fascinated about, so long as we’re clear about when and why we’re splitting from the extra conventional strategies.

The Methods That Make This Recipe Completely different (and Scrumptious)

One of many first issues I did when rethinking my very own method to this traditional was to sear the scallops. Searing good-quality sea scallops brings out their inherent sweetness and deepens it—it is one thing I wished to infuse into each the scallops and the sauce. To make that occur, I sear the scallops in the exact same saucepan I exploit to make the sauce, making a fond on the underside of the pan that I can then seize with subsequent deglazing.

Now, I am going to admit that searing scallops in a small three-quart saucepan is just not the perfect method to do it. They’re going to be a bit crowded, they will steam extra, chances are you’ll not get the world’s finest sear on them. However that is fantastic, the purpose right here is not the world’s finest seared scallops, it is merely to prepare dinner them frivolously and construct a few of that sweetness and fond.

The following change I made was including bottled clam juice to the white wine broth. This provides a savory, shellfish-forward basis for the sauce to help the scallops whereas lowering the amount of wine within the sauce. The result’s a extra flavorful sauce that is properly balanced with the wine’s acidity, however not sharp or harsh.

To spice up the sauce’s taste much more, I simmer the wine and clam juice with aromatics like shallot, thyme, bay leaf, and the trimmed stems of the mushrooms (as a result of, sure, I made a decision I wished to go together with the mushrooms on this recipe). However then I took it a step additional, including a small dose of instantaneous dashi. That is a kind of clearly nontraditional strategies that makes such a beautiful totally different within the end result. It will increase the sauce’s umami taste whereas tying collectively two important components—the earthy mushrooms and candy, fresh-from-the-sea scallops—because of the dashi’s deep umami core that usually incorporates each mushroom and elements from the ocean.

Except for that, I stick fairly near custom, cooking the mushrooms and shallots till deeply flavorful, constructing a roux- and egg yolk–enriched velouté, and topping every serving with crispy and golden buttery breadcrumbs flavored with grated Gruyere and contemporary thyme.

The result’s completely French, even when that is, in some methods, a extra trendy interpretation of that. Then once more, that too is completely French, as a result of the delicacies may be very a lot alive and open to reinvention.