A few weeks ago my dad proudly told me about a recipe he made up for scallops.  I’ve never really cooked with scallops, or been particularly in love with them, so it took me a while before I decided it was the time.  Heading home from work today I was uninspired, but after some thought it was a pretty easy decision.

I called up my dad for a refresher in his culinary vision, and hit Whole Foods to pick up the ingredients I was missing.  In true form, I did a few modifications (notably, RFCS instead of bullion), and whipped it up.

It truly blew me away, the richness of the sauce paired with the creamy texture and the complex, subtle flavor of the scallops was more than I could have hoped for.  My dad told me that when he first made this meal, he repeated it the night after, and the night after that.  If we didn’t have a whopping chicken brining for tomorrows dinner, we’d probably do the same.

A quick love note to RFCS (real freakin’ chicken stock):  I’ve spent a lot of my life really going for bullion.  It’s a great shortcut, and you can get far with it.  It is, however, a shortcut, and you miss out on two things.  The first one that you notice is the lack of the journey.  While more important to the cook than to the guests, this is key to me.  Watching everything I cook come together – from things I can imagine dangling from a tree or clucking merrily underneath one – is meaningful and satisfying.  I’m a ground-up kinda guy, so take it for what it’s worth.  The second thing is umami: proteiny-flavor.  There are two ways to get this flavor, MSG and actual protein.  Most bullion comes with MSG – which gives me the willies (and hives).  Even the ‘natural’ stuff comes with ‘yeast extract’, which is close to the same thing.  I have given up searching for a magic cube that gives a meal the same roundness and satisfying mouthfeel that comes from a well-prepared chicken stock.  Allright, allright, that’s enough.

This meal is a composition of three parts.  The bottom is orzo (rice-shaped pasta).  Layered on top of that is a parsley-cream sauce.  Crown jewel: seared scallops.  Orzo is easy, follow directions (boil, drain, serve).  The parsley cream sauce goes as follows:

Take two big bunches of parsley (I did one flat-leaf and one curly-leaf), and chop them up finely.  While chopping, sizzle up some garlic in butter, being careful not to burn it.  Fry the parsley with the garlic for a while, and pour in a few cups of RFCS.  Let that simmer for a while, and add 3/4 cup cream to it.  Mix around and keep the heat going, and then thicken with a good mixture of flour and milk.  Mix the flour and milk together in a small jar, using a spring whisk or similar.  When adding to the sauce pass it through a sieve so that it doesn’t get clumpy.  Keep adding more until it’s the right consistency (I used around 1/2 cup of flour and 1 cup of milk).

Once the sauce is where you want it, get some butter hot in a pan and sear your scallops in it.  I used really nice scallops and so I let ‘em be a bit rare.  It doesn’t take much time to get these suckers done… better a bit underdone than a bit overdone.

Then, layer, serve, and enjoy.  Garnish with a sprig of parsley!