{"id":7412,"date":"2016-03-16T00:14:25","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T00:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=7412"},"modified":"2016-03-16T00:14:25","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T00:14:25","slug":"scallops-with-herb-butter-tomatoes-cress-mustard-greens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=7412","title":{"rendered":"scallops with herb butter; tomatoes, cress; mustard greens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"scallops_tomato_mustard_greens\"<\/a><\/p>\n

almost\u00a0over the top, at least by my\u00a0measure<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I rarely include\u00a0a cream sauce in any of my cooking, and in fact the finishing touch on these scallops was not actually\u00a0a\u00a0cream sauce, but a ‘composed butter’ which included\u00a0fish juices, herbs and wild garlic, a small remainder from\u00a0this earlier meal<\/a>, kept frozen in a ramekin until now.<\/p>\n

The picture above is\u00a0very unlike\u00a0the\u00a0usual images of pan-grilled scallops found on this blog (this one<\/a> is my favorite), which are frankly more to my taste, but I couldn’t resist pursuing the experiment this time.<\/p>\n

I’ve had the small ramekin on my mind for two weeks, hoping to arrange a perfect [second] marriage for it. \u00a0I’m more familiar with composed butters as a final touch for grilled steaks<\/em>, a device I’ve only encountered in\u00a0Julia Childs books; I was afraid that matching\u00a0this one up with shellfish\u00a0might be too much of a stretch, but the result was delicious.<\/p>\n

The plans for virtually every element of this meal came together only at the last moment – in fact only while I was actually already cooking – and that included\u00a0the treatment of the scallops.<\/p>\n

Mildly-aromatic ‘wild garlic’ came into play twice during the preparation of\u00a0this dinner,\u00a0as a finish for the tomatoes, and as an important element in the herb butter spread on\u00a0top of the scallops. I’ll think of this tiny (actually, at least partially domesticated) plant as my first 2016 ‘find’ in the Greenmarket. \u00a0It’s tasty, attractive, pretty versatile, and keeps pretty well. It’s also the harbinger of a growing\u00a0season which is actually heralded by the first appearance of ramps<\/a>, which, while definitely wild, have become a fixture, a tradition, for\u00a0both the farmers\u00a0and their happy city customers.<\/p>\n

\"wild_garlic\"<\/a><\/p>\n