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How To Cook Scallops
By Leeanne Utiger
Learn how to cook scallops and then be ready to serve up a delicious mouth watering entrée to your friends and family. Scallops are a delicious food to serve when you have guests around for a special occasion.
There are a few ways you can cook scallops. I will get into a few ways of how you can cook scallops for any occasion. As scallops are a form of seafood, not everyone will have the taste buds for them, yet I have every now and then, come across a person who will not touch seafood, and yet has indulged themselves in a scallop or two. I think it all really does depend on just how something is cooked, and in this case, that something being scallops.
The method I know of how to cook scallops the best, would be that of deep frying scallops. There are two ways you can do this, both with a varying factor involved in how they turn out on cooking. It depends on your preference at the end of the day. Firstly, you will need to make a visit to your local supermarket, to see if they have any fresh scallops in store. Sometimes it is quit hard to find nice, big juicy looking scallops. The other thing to take into account is the price you will sometimes have to pay for scallops. Do not expect to get too many for little cost. This will not happen. So if you are going to spend money on scallops and really enjoy your meal, make sure you at least buy decent looking scallops. It would seem such a waste if you bought 'just what was left' so to speak. If you cannot get any scallops from your local supermarket, pay a visit to a fish 'n' chip store. Sometimes they will be prepared to sell scallops to you prior to them being cooked.
Once you have managed to buy some delicious looking scallops, take them home and wash them over with some cold water, just to make sure they are nice and clean. Now, before you learn anything more about how to cook scallops, I want you to make sure you have a few other things that you will need to be able to cook the scallops you have bought.
You will need for this first method, a deep pot, some cooking oil and either breadcrumbs, or you can if you so choose make up ahead of cooking your scallops some batter of your choice. Ground black pepper, lettuce leaves, sliced tomato and some lemons or lemon juice will also be needed. Breadcrumbs can either be breadcrumbs you yourself have prepared, or packaged ones from the local supermarket. You will addition to those ingredients need a serving spoon with holes in it, some handy towels or serviettes, and dinner plates.
Now that you have all of these ingredients ready and on hand, you are now at the point of actually learning how to cook your scallops. You can now pour a fairly decent amount of cooking oil into your deep pot, however not too much, so that once you place the scallops into the deep pot it in fact over flows. You do not want this to happen, for it could quite possibly cause a fire. While your oil is heating at a reasonable temperature (you not have to have it on high), as you still have to prepare your scallops, you can make use of the other ingredients. I will now go into how to prepare your scallops for placing into the hot oil in the pot to be cooked. You have already washed your scallops with cold water, to make sure they are clean. Now I want you to sprinkle some ground black pepper over each scallop with a squirt of lemon juice. Once you have done this to every one of the scallops you are going to deep fry, you can now fully cover each scallop with either the pre packaged breadcrumbs, or your own breadcrumbs, or the batter you prepared earlier. Now that you have learned how to prepare your scallops, you are almost ready to cook them. Check to see if the oil has heated sufficiently. If it is bubbling then it is ready. Gently place each scallop one at a time on to the serving spoon with the holes in it, and then carefully place into the deep pot of heated oil. Repeat this until all of the scallops are in the pot of heated oil, and covered sufficiently. If you feel you have too many scallops to all be cooked at once, that is ok. Simply turn your oven on to a warm temperature, so you can place the cooked scallops in it to be kept hot while you deep fry what is left over. Scallops do not take long to cook at all. I normally deep fry scallops for approximately 5 - 8 minutes, depending on the temperature of the element. Once you have finished cooking all of the scallops, you are almost ready to serve them up to your guests. Spoon the scallops out of the heated oil once you can see they are cooked with the spoon with the holes in, and place them onto a handy towel or serviette, so the excess oil can drain off them and be soaked up. While the scallops are draining off any excess oil, you can place lettuce leaves on the dinner plates, with some sliced tomato resting just on one side of the lettuce leaves.
Once you have your lettuce prepared and waiting, you can then place your scallops on top of the lettuce leaves. Grind some fresh black pepper over the scallops. A nice condiment to have with your scallops is a Thousand Island Dressing. You can either opt to make your own, or once again purchase it already made up off the shelf at your local supermarket. Have some of this in a small serving bowl in the center of your nicely set table with a teaspoon. Know how to let your guests make their own choices as to what extras they would prefer to have with their scallops that you have learnt how to cook for them. This is a great little idea to have as an entrée leading up to a main dinner course during a meal when you have guests over.
The other method relating to deep frying scallops, is to simply omit the pot and use instead, a deep fryer appliance if you have one. You may however be able to cut down on the cooking time if you co choose to use such an appliance to cook your scallops in.
Knowing how to cook scallops will not always be a conventional lesson. You can in fact place scallops on to the barbeque and cook them that way also. Once again, sprinkle some ground black pepper on the scallops you have purchased, squeeze some lemon juice on to them and simply place them onto the barbeque hotplate. Turn them once you see the side on the plate has itself cooked.
There are many recipes to be found where you can impress your guests with such a delicacy.
See Also:
For further information on how to cook scallops, refer to:
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