I had an ambitious plan to make the best coconut rice that I’ve ever tasted and, unfortunately, it failed miserably. Well, the rice itself wasn’t so bad, but about half of it ended up burnt and stuck to the bottom of the pan. Oh well, I suppose I shouldn’t complain, as I’ve had pretty good luck when it comes to making rice on the stovetop. You have to expect some failures sometimes. The rice that I was able to scrape from the pan was good, but it definitely wasn’t the tastiest coconut rice that I’ve ever had, so I’m not going to include the recipe here. Now, when I finally do make the tastiest coconut rice ever, you’ll be the first to know.
Moving on from the rice to the much more successful part of the meal — the scallops with coconut sauce. I concocted the sauce off the top of my head and didn’t write it down, but it was fairly simple to put together, so I think I’ll be able to recreate the recipe from my memory. It was quite flavorful, if I do say so myself. You will have a good deal of leftover sauce (I didn’t estimate the amount that I’d need very well), but the leftovers would be great over rice, chicken, shrimp, or even something like broccoli. Or you could just halve the recipe.
Ingredients
1 lb. sea (large) scallops
1 small shallot, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbsp. coconut oil or vegetable oil
1 cup coconut cream
juice of 1 lime
zest of 1/2 lime
1/4 – 1/2 tsp. dried pepper flakes
1 Tbsp. fresh ginger, finely grated
salt to taste
Directions
1. In a small saucepan, heat the coconut or vegetable oil on medium low and add minced shallot and garlic. Cook until the shallot and garlic begin to soften, about 2-3 minutes. Add the coconut cream and fresh ginger. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until the mixture begins to thicken, about five minutes. Remove from the heat and add the lime juice and zest, dried pepper flakes, and salt to taste.
2. Meanwhile, heat a skillet until a droplet of water evaporates instantly upon being dropped into the pan. When the skillet is hot enough, add about half the scallops (not too many, as the pan will cool too much and the scallops won’t sear properly) and sear for about 3 minutes on each side. Remove from the skillet and bring the heat back up before adding the second half of the scallops and repeating the searing process. Serve immediately with the coconut sauce.
Posted in Food, Main Dishes, Seafood | 1 Comment »
Tried this the other night & it was very tasty. Finished the sauce off with hunks of bread. I did not use any oil as the recipe does not call for it but next time I will use some veg oil to sear as the scallops stuck to the pan.
posted: February 9th, 2012 at 10:12 am