Recipe by@natalialeporehagan- Pasta Maker/lover Owner of @midnightpastaco -Watch the Cooking Video
Ingredients:
- Tagliolini, spaghetti or bucatini will do well for this recipe
- Scallops, 3 per serving
- 3 Tablespoons butter
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 medium shallot
- 1 lemon for zesting
- 1 clove garlic
- 4 basil leaves
Instructions:
- Thaw scallops and pat them dry with a paper towel. Remove the abductor muscle from the side of scallops. When it’s time to cook the scallops you can use this to test the pan to make sure it’s hot enough. Otherwise you can discard the muscles.
- Bring a pot of salted water to a boil
- Finely dice shallot and garlic
- Check the cook time of your pasta and cook two minutes less, you’ll be finishing the pasta in the sauce
- Heat a sauté pan to medium high heat
- Add one tablespoon of butter and one tablespoon olive oil to hot pan
- Season scallops with salt and pepper and gently place into melted butter and oil. You can gently press down on the scallop to make sure the whole flesh is making contact with the pan.
- Don’t disturb the scallop for at least two minutes. Once they have released from the pan and have a beautiful sear you can flip them to the other side
- With your spoon, baste scallops with all the butter and oil in the pan and let the second side cook for about one minute
- Remove scallops from the pan and turn the heat to medium
- Add shallot and garlic to the butter and oil, stirring to combine and releasing all the fond left on the bottom of the pan from the scallops. This will give your sauce a beautiful flavor
- Season with salt and pepper
- Cook shallots and garlic down and add one ladle full of pasta water into the pan to create your sauce
- Zest a quarter of lemon into the sauce
- Add pasta straight from the water to the pan and stir to combine using more pasta water as needed to get a creamy and silky consistency
- Turn the heat off and hand rip basil leaves into pasta stirring again in the pan
- Plate your pasta with your perfect scallops and enjoy!
