Around the KItchen Table - Pan Seared Scallops with a Summer Corn Medley

Hi, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Around the Kitchen Table. My co-host Susan Sarah is here and we've got some deliciousness headed your way. And you'll notice we've cut the show down to half an hour because, you know, it was getting a little hard for people to stay on for a full hour. So we're going to condense it a little bit today and I hope you bear with us while we work this out to a shorter format. So how you doing, Susan?

I'm doing just great. Just great. I think the new format's going to be cool. I think we're going to just give bullet points of, you know, good cooking tips and smart kitchen design tips, and I think it's going to be better than ever. So I'm doing great. And look at you. I am crazy about that color. Now that is a color that I can, you know, get on board with. And I want everyone to say what do they think of this new chef's coat. I think it's cool. You're looking good. You've been holding out on this one.

Well, they— the two came together and I sprung the plum on you last week.

Yeah.

And this is a really good color. I love this color blue. It's kind of like a teal almost. It's always been one of my favorite blues.

It's like a peacock blue and you are strutting yourself like a peacock. I think it's— I think it's great.

That's good. Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. So we have a Cool show today, one of my favorite. And you know, this is— don't you think this is kind of a fish that's kind of easy to like?

I think so, you know, and it's something we don't always go out and get scallops. You know, if we're in a restaurant, that's one of the things I always look for on a menu. You know, I might not just get plain scallops, but I'll make sure I get something that has scallops with it because, you know, while we might cook shrimp at home, we'll cook fish at home, even clams, we rarely Rarely do scallops. They're really a very tasty shellfish, I guess, because they come from the shell. One of the things on here too we were talking about earlier is most of the time there's a little bit of a muscle here that you want to make sure you pull off whenever you cook scallops too, because that's too tough and you don't want to eat that. That's where it connects to the shell. All those pretty little shells that you always see on the beaches with the scalloped edges, well, that's where they come from, from scallops.

Yeah, I know, I know. I love to collect those shells. Do you— up here where I am on Long Island, we also have the very tiny scallops, and I can't remember which is bay and which are sea scallops.

Think of the bigger body of water. The bay scallops are small, the sea scallops are the big ones.

There you go. That's it forever until the day I die. That is— I'm going to remember that. Cool. And isn't there a difference in the taste?

I think so. I don't think the bay scallops really have as pronounced a flavor, and they're always overcooked because they're so small. Generally, you put them in sauces or soups, and so they're getting really cooked way, way too long. It's not something you'll find too many sauté dishes or anything that's going to be treated well, because again, they're so small, it's hard to cook them properly. I might try and bread them and deep fry them and just do some tiny little sea scallop, fried scallops, you know, and do them really, really quickly just to get some color on them. Cool.

I like that. Great idea. And after, I'll be talking about where to store these pans, which can really be a pain in the neck, and there's so many options which I'm going to share with you. So, Chef, let's get started with your terrific dish once again.

Okay. Sounds good. First thing we're going to talk about really is about the scallops and preparing them. I first mentioned about taking the muscle off of them, which is important to do. You want to find nice-sized scallops. Sometimes if they get a little bit too big, they're going to take too long to cook. They're going to be hard to handle. Size is not as important when they get some really under-8 size they used to sell. I don't want them quite that big. This is probably about a 16 or 20 count, somewhere in that range.. That's a nice size for a scallop. Actually, these were previously frozen. These aren't fresh scallops. I got these at Sam's Club. They've really been very, very good. This is actually the last one I have. I have some shrimp on the side to supplement this dinner with tonight so we have enough to eat. First thing you do after you wash your scallops, you pull the little muscle off as you dry them. Really, really well. I've had these in a few layers of paper towels, let them soak all the moisture out of them, especially when you're going to sear them. They want to be really, really dry to sear. From that point on, I patted them down, I've got them nice and dry, and we're going to season them. Typically, to get a crust on the scallop, you want to let it caramelize a little bit. I've got my pan on getting hot because the most important thing right now is a very hot pan.. That's really what's going to determine the searing of the scallop, getting a nice color to it, a little bit of a crust to it, and not overcooking the scallop. That's the most important thing. If it takes you too long to sear that scallop, you're going to ruin the scallop. You're going to overcook it. It's going to be rubbery and it's not going to have that really great flavor that you're looking for. While the pan is heating up, I'm just going to season these. Typically, it's just salt and pepper. I mean, if that's all you want to do, put some nice salt, brown salt on it, sea salt on it, some fresh cracked pepper, both sides, and you're in business. But I'm going to do a little Old Bay today. I know I had a Cajun seasoning.

Oh yes, isn't that so great? It just does it all.

We really like Old Bay. Any excuse to use it. I'm just going to pat it into it a little bit before I turn them over. I don't want them to be over-seasoned, but I want them to have some nice flavor. My pan is getting hot. I can smell it.

Now, did you put any oil in the pan yet?

Not yet. I'm going to let it get hot first because if I put the oil in now, as it heats really quickly, as it gets hot, it's going to start to smoke. I'm just trying to cut down on that a little bit. That's another important thing about cooking scallops is you can use all kinds of oils. This is not one of the times that I'm going to be using olive oil. I'm going to be using a vegetable oil, actually it's canola oil because canola oil has a higher heating point.

Oh, that's why I see that so often. I don't have it. I really should get it.

I use this for baking because I don't always want that flavor of olive oil in baking., and if I need something for higher heat, I also have some coconut oil in the house, and that's really got a higher heat to it, so I could have used that, but I had— the canola oil goes up to about 420 degrees.

Okay.

In that range. And olive oil is more at the 350 range, somewhere around that, maybe even a little lower.

Okay, let me ask you a question. I'm always a fan of mixing oil and butter because of the flavor. Is that something that you would do with scallops?

You could. You're not really going to taste it. You taste whatever's at the end. If you use butter, it'd have to be clarified butter.

Oh, really? Oh, because you're searing.

Yeah, and butter's got a lower smoke point, too. Butter's a fat. You wouldn't use that type of a fat, the animal— more of a vegetable fat is what you're looking for.

Good point. Good point. Oh, I love that. I love that sound. Who doesn't love that, that sound? And you probably don't want them to touch, right? Isn't that like a common thing? Or else what, what will happen? They'll steam?

Well, not so much as they'll just start to stick. And yeah, they'll steam a little bit. And this is also too, is overcrowding. And a lot of times people try to put way too much in a pan. Because what happens is, is the temperature of the pan is going to go down as you put a lot more product in it. So we're going to be adding them slowly.

And so that's a very, that's a very high heat.

Yes, I have. I actually have this turned up on 7, but I've never had it past 5, so it might have even been able to go up a little bit more, crank it up to 8. I just don't want it to smoke. You want to be careful that it doesn't smoke too much. If it's starting to smoke a lot, you know, then that's about the time that you want to turn it off or turn it down.

How can you tell I was wondering, Chef, if the scallops are fresh. I mean, you know, there's a couple of fish markets in my town, and one time when I brought the salmon home, it just smelled a tiny bit fishy, and it didn't in the other place. So now I'm shopping in the other place. How can you tell? Is it the odor? Is there any way other than the odor? That's what you go by?

It's the flesh. The flesh should be firm. If it starts to give a little too much when you push on it, you know, it's older. It's like anything else. If it's a fresh fish, if it's a whole fish, look at the eyes to see how cloudy the eyes are. See how the scales are on it. You know, there's just certain ways to look at it. And if it has— it should smell like the sea. Once it starts to smell like fish, it's begun that journey into being old.

Okay.

You just have a— like, it's okay to have a smell like the sea, but you don't want it to have fishy smell. These are looking good. It's important, like I said, you want to get some color on them. A lot of people will use nonstick pans. I have one for eggs, but I rarely use a Teflon pan for anything else. I've never been a big fan of stand of Teflon.

Yeah, I was, you know, I was wondering about that. In fact, I have a pan, I think it's stainless steel, it just seems like everything always sticks to it. I wonder if it's because I don't cook with as high a heat as I should be. Is that why?

The high heat will definitely help., but then you just have to get under it. Now you can see I got some real good color on a few of these. The ones that broke up, I'm using them because I'm not going to throw scallops away.

Of course.

But presented-wise, I would present the prettier ones. This is pretty much it. We were talking about how to— these were frozen, so you want to, like I said, defrost them in cold running water, or you can put them in your refrigerator and let them defrost defrost overnight. Then after you rinse them off, you just want to make sure you towel them down and get them nice and dry. Anytime you're going to cook something, even shrimp, if it was frozen, dry them off really well first so you don't have any excess moisture. This is pretty much done. It's just like anything else. It'll start to feel a little firmer as it's cooked. A scallop, pretty much you want to cook them You want to get some color on each side. Let's see how this other side looks.

Yeah, but how do you really know that's done? I mean, how do you know? Is there how many minutes you cook it, or what if it's translucent inside? I mean, you don't want to cut into it. No. So would you say about 2 minutes per side?

2 minutes per side would be the most I would go. Again, you want to look at the size of them. These were about maybe 2 minutes a side. You want to check on the size and then you want to get a good color and then the feel. Like I said, it will start to firm up. When it firms up, you're pretty much done. If you're not sure, you can flash them in a hot oven. You can put them in a 350-degree oven for about 5 to 7 minutes just to make sure as soon as you took them off the stove. If you wanted to hold these for a little while and get your searing done, you could also do the same thing when you're ready to serve. Just flash them in a real hot oven because they don't have to be steaming hot. It's kind of like a fillet. Fillet is never served really, really hot, hot. The same thing with scallops. Don't expect them to be steaming hot. They should be hot.

Yeah, but they have to be cooked through. It's not like salmon where I like medium rare salmon. Scallops have to be totally cooked through like shrimp, right?

Yeah, you want them cooked through, but they don't take quite as long as you might think.

Okay, cool.

And they can be just a tad not quite, you know, just really close. It's just a hard call on something that's this delicate, and it's a matter of cooking it long enough till you kind of get the feel of it. But, you know, when in doubt, cook it just a little bit longer.

Cool. Okay, so what else do you have going for us there?

We're— I'm going to clean this pan out a little bit, and then I'm going to come back with what I'm going to serve with it, my accompaniment. So if you want to talk—

Sure, I'll take over from here.

Got it.

So, okay, cool. So we have to store these pans, and I don't know about you, but I have a really dysfunctional kitchen. I moved into this house, my husband and I did, about 5 years ago, 5 and a half years ago. We still have not done the kitchen, and the kitchen is basic, typical kitchen cabinets, and we don't— in some of the cabinets, we don't have any storage aids, per se. So, I put together an album of different ways to store pans and some pots, too, and I'd like to show that to you. So, I'm going to quickly go into screen share. Here we are, and now here is the first kitchen. This is actually a kitchen that I designed, and you can see now what's over the island is it's an antique meat rack that a colleague of mine who owns the kitchen went to seek after, to look after, something fabulous and antique, and, you know, isn't that great? Here's another Pot racks. So, of course, we're all familiar with storing pots and pans on a pot rack. And let me tell you, there are so many wonderful ways, you know, which can really be a focal point over an island, as you see, on walls, you know, so many different ways. Now, one thing that really is important to me is, you see rollouts here? This is interesting because it's angled back. But what I like about this is what's important when storing pots and pans is not to overload. Just, I mean, you see, oh, but only put 2, only put— yes, put less pots and pans if you can, because then you'll have less clanking. Of course, the one you always want is on the bottom. So those are a couple of suggestions. Here are typical rollout shelves. This actually is attached all in one. You attach a door to it and you pull out the whole door and you access them from the sides. Now, here I was at a kitchen show And there's all kinds of storage aids. The one I just showed, corner solutions, regular rollouts, and there are so many storage aids, which is good for universal design, it's good for your bad back. Now, here's a great one that I really like. I believe this may be by, possibly by Rev-A-Shelf, and you can store pans vertically. Vertically, which is cool. So you have the handles up, and these types of inserts you can retrofit into any of your base cabinets, so it'll prevent you from digging. And here's another one. You'll notice the door right in front. And we have— now this is interesting, and I've seen this too— a sort of pegboard. Now this one is, is high, but you can do it on a lower cabinet too. I think Rev-A-Shelf makes that pegboard board type of base cabinet insert too. So that's really cool. And there they are, very accessible. Here's another kitchen I designed, and what I did, it's kind of a French, French country look. Below the cooktop, there is two doors that have chicken wire, chicken wire, and then you can see the pans inside to kind of give it that little, you know, casual country feel. Here's another kitchen I designed where we have pots hanging on each side of the mantel hood, on each side of the range. So, this is a pot rack that's just horizontal, close to the wall, and you can use it for decorative or functional pots. Another— I mean, this is, this is kind of a luxury chrome rollout type shelf, and also other closer Storage Solutions. Here we have it in green, but that's actually the lighting. Now you can also outfit a very shallow pantry. Notice that this is shallow. We don't have pans hanging on here, but you can see the S-hooks right over here. So we can certainly add that and add some hanging pans somewhat nearby and, and a good accessible height as well. Again, now we have— although we have cookie sheets here, We can certainly put in the cast iron pans, any kind of pans in a vertical way, one by one or two by two, separated by these vertical dividers. It's a different solution you don't normally see. Another solution, a sliding door and then roll out. And here's just a bunch of different types of storage solutions. Now, here's one that's in a closet. Corner. It's part of an L-shaped corner, so that's cool. And you can just put— again, you can fit 3 or 4 or 5 pans on here and maybe stack 1 or 2, maybe 2. I'm not so sure I'd stack 3 because then it's a lot of banging and, you know, what goes where. So here's another view of that vertical one. And also, there are these Inserts you can put in a drawer. Now that's in a drawer. So, and here's a base cabinet pegboard configuration. A great view of how to store pans. Easy, pick it up, take it out, each one has a home. Another interesting configuration, rollouts. Now look at this. This is, these are small pans, but this is an old-fashioned pantry, you know, painted a bright color with a pegboard again, like Julia Child used. So that's my little album of pegboards. So pretty cool, huh? Not pegboards, I mean storage solutions for pans. Cool, huh?

Great. I love some of those ideas. And here, Aslan Bloor has just commented that she'll— she loves your work and she's going to fly you there when they remodel.

Oh, cool. I'm there. I'm totally there. Feed me, feed me, and I'm there. Feed me.

Alright, so we'll get started with the accompaniment now. I've got my pan hot. I just put a little oil in it. I'm dumping in my corn. That's going to take the longest to cook right now. Actually, it doesn't take very long at all. We just want to sear it up a little bit. I'm going to put some salt and pepper on it.

Now, I wonder if that will give you sort of a flavor almost like a like grilled corn, you know, sort of browning a little, browning it a little bit. What do you think?

Well, you know, you want— again, you want to do it at a high temperature so you get a little caramelization to it. So, you know, I had my pan nice and hot, and I'm just going to get a little, you know, a little color. You can see a couple of the kernels turning brown in there. And as I'm doing that, I'm going to add a little bit of red pepper, the color.

So that, I think that seems to, that it will probably enhance the flavor of sautéing the corn like that.

Oh, absolutely.

Okay.

Because it's going to give it a little more sweetness because you're going to caramelize it a little bit with that high temperature.

Yep.

And you know, corn is, really doesn't take a long, long time to cook. We tend to overcook corn a lot, especially when we boil it. If we grill it, you know, and some of the sweetest corn I had has been corn that I've grilled. It's real crunchy still. You just don't want it to be raw. This is pretty good right here. We didn't get a lot of color to it, but it's cooking up nicely. A little bit more pepper on this.

So do you par-cook the peppers at all?

They were roasted peppers.

Oh, they were roasted peppers. I love roasted peppers.

Because I had roasted peppers in the house I wanted to use up. But if they were fresh peppers, no, I wouldn't. I would put them in and they're still going to be a little crispy, but they're going to be nice and tasty and they're going to be bright and they're going to retain their flavor. That's pretty much done. Now I also am going to add a little rice to this. This happened because I had some left over. Leftover rice, so I actually had to make it for this dish. But when I first came up with this idea, it came together because I was using some things I had left over in the house, which is, you know, a lot of times how you come up with some tasty dishes.

It sure is.

So that's done.

That is clever.

All right, I'm going to turn the heat off. I'm going to add in some peaches.

Wow. Oh, love it! And love, love— see, you know what I love about a lot of your dishes is the visual and the texture, the colors, the texture. It's a beautiful visual. And you know what? That makes food so enjoyable also for me anyway.

Little cilantro.

Has to look good. Has to look good.

Yeah, it's got to look good, and it's got some nice fresh flavors here. And you saw how fast that was to make. Now, if you don't have time to get fresh corn and take it off the ears, buy some frozen corn. There's some really good frozen corn out there. Try that up. Again, it's not always about spending a lot of time making a dish if you don't have the time to prep it. You can blend things together. If you've got some leftover pasta, this could have just as easily been some little pasta shapes instead of the rice and it would have still been wonderful.

I think that looks great, Chef. I think it looks like an easy, light dish, summer, you know, it really says a lot about summer, I think. It's a beautiful dish.

Yeah, and this side dish alone, even if you don't feel like making scallops, this would go great with some grilled chicken.

Oh yeah. Yep. In fact, that's what I'm making tomorrow. Well, I'm not making grilled chicken. I'm making my bistro chicken with the garlic and the tarragon and the wine and everything. But yeah, this looks really great. Wow. Beautiful. We have a few comments. Yeah, let's see. The other way. Yeah. Okay. Stop there. Nice. Nice. Crust on it. Nice brown, nice color, the red. But you know what? You're an artist. You're a visual artist as well as a food artist.

Thank you.

Love it. Love it.

Okay, so that's— so if you had a few more scallops, like I said, if you wanted to make this with chicken, that would be really, really good with chicken. You'd have some wonderful flavors going there.

Yeah, I mean, I can even see— and how about a one-dish meal with andouille sausage?

Sure, you could throw some more. You could have the other protein and just add it right in. It's cooked, add it in at the end. The only thing you want to be careful of is when you add fruit is you don't want to cook it too much. So if you're adding in something like that, you'll notice I pretty much had the heat off when I added the peaches into it because I want them to retain their integrity. I'm not going to give them an opportunity to really caramelize because I have so much else in the pan now, so they'll more like steam and just soften. Up. Yeah, that's not what I'm looking for. So, you know, I got it nice and hot, I added my ingredients together, turned it off, add the peaches in just to get them a little toss with the heat.

Right, you want them to retain their fresh, you know, temperature and taste.

Absolutely.

Yeah, smart. Now we have a few comments.

Sure.

Okay, so Christopher Vogelman says Where are we? Okay, so any danger of undercooking scallops? I think he's talking in terms of danger. Any— but it's a good question.

You know, I tend to undercook mine just a little. I've never had an issue with it. You know, they're like— Aslan said, they do make sushi out of scallops. It's just you always have to make sure your seafood is of a good source, and I think it comes down to that, is like finding a fishmonger that you trust. A lot of things now are flash frozen right on the ship, and that really preserves the integrity of the products a lot more than bringing them into the harbor and transferring them and all that. Sometimes frozen is good because of that reason, and it's safer. If you can find a good fishmonger, there is nothing better than good fresh scallops if you can find them. They should be a dry pack. Like when I used to buy them by the 40-pound bag. I mean, there was no moisture in that bag at all. They were dry, really dry.

Oh, that's great. That's exactly, that's exactly what you need. And Coach G. Moore says fish and lemon juice for older missold, quotes, fish. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure what he means by that.

You know, he said the lemon juice will help mask some some of the flavor, this odor, and you just really need to shop for the fish that's a little fresher.

Absolutely, yeah, no question about that.

We were at a local grocer and my wife was in the mood for fish and she's pointing at it and I go, "You don't want that." No. "You really don't want that." Good thing she didn't—

she wasn't without you and didn't bring it home.

Well, you know, that is what people do, you know, unfortunately.

Another one from Coach G.

Moore, "Is the pan All-Clad?" No, it's not an All-Clad, Coach, but an All-Clad would work. It's— you need a pan that is induction ready, and my pan is actually a Duxtop, which I had never heard of in my life, and it is amazing. They don't make every pan. I would order more, more of them. They have some small sets, but it's heavy, it cooks really well on induction, it cleans up well. The sauté pan, I think, was like $30.. And, you know, compared to an All-Clad, which All-Clad is brilliant, would have been probably $100 for the same sauté pan. But yeah, you know, I don't have— we need All-Clad to send me some pans.

Definitely, definitely. There's a lot to do on those. And Loretta Sebastiani says, very interesting recipe, quick to do. And that's really your hallmark. That's, that's a big part of it anyway, don't you think?

Yeah, it's got to be something that you can do quickly. It's not going to really take all your time to do it because really, if you're working and you're tired, nothing's better than having a really good interesting meal to eat at the end of that day to cheer you up because food really changes your mood. But if it's going to require so much work that it's just— you're going to be more aggravated than happy about it, you've lost it. My dishes tend to be quick. Sauté is wonderful for that. Thinking about using things that you have on hand, like if you had plums on hand, you could have put some plums in there, chopped plums, cherries. Cherries would have been really nice in there. Believe it or not, people might be shaking their heads, but try some fresh cherries halved in there with your corn. Match things. Use your imagination. You'll be really surprised.

I can tell you, too, to enhance the whole cooking experience, experience, don't overstock your cabinets and keep them easily accessible because when you can quickly reach for this or that and lids, you saw how lids were stored vertically, you may have missed that shot.

I saw it.

Yeah, okay. So, you know, when you just can reach for things easily and quickly, I mean, doesn't that just enhance the whole experience?

Yeah, it's the whole thing. It's the whole idea of easy, happy cooking, using what you have. But again, you know, stocking your dry pantry with some things that, you know, maybe will cross-blend themselves to make different dishes, you know, some different kinds of pastas, just to change up things. But, you know, as you go along, you just add another spice, add something, but, you know, enjoy what you're doing. But make it— and to me, too, things that are made quicker are always really flavorful and fresh. That's how I think of them. So that's another way to think about it too.

And yeah, and this is a good dish to show those points. So thanks again everyone for watching, and Chef, it was great fun. Good show.

Always is, and thank you so much for coming. And here's our newer, shorter, improved version of Around the Kitchen Table. We'll see you all next time.