Bay Scallops with Garlic Parsley Butter Sauce – I’ll Have the Nostalgia on Toast

They say smell is the sense most closely linked to memory recall, and that was certainly the case while making these garlicky, buttery bay scallops on toast. As waves of the wonderful aromas wafted up from the pan, they brought back a flood of vivid memories of my first real kitchen job.

Barely a teenager, I was hired as a dishwasher at an Italian steakhouse, called The Depot (pictured below is the train station that predated the restaurant). While it was fun being inside a bustling kitchen, washing dishes was anything but. By comparison, what I saw the line cooks doing looked like the greatest job ever, and this certainly played a role in my future career plans.

Anyway, there was a scallop dish on the menu, which consisted of 6 large scallops being placed in a small metal broiler plate, seasoned with salt and pepper, and then doused with wine, lemon, garlic, and butter. This was placed under the flame until the scallops were browned, and the sauce was bubbling below. It was finished with fresh parsley, and served with toasted Italian bread for dipping into the amazing juices.

(c) All rights reserved by John R. Stewart

The smell of that sizzling plate as it went by my station was almost too much to take, and once in a while, thanks to some kind of ordering mishap, I’d actually get to eat one. It was pure bliss, and a flavor combination I still love to this day.

By the way, unlike the large day-boat scallops you’re seen me cook before, these are way too small to worry about searing brown. In a restaurant kitchen, if we’re just cooking a couple ounces, we could get a decent sear and still finish the sauce without overcooking. But doing this many at home, all we really need to concentrate on, is not over cooking them. Besides, bay scallops are so naturally sweet, tender, and delicious, the sear is not as important as with the larger ones.

As I mention in the video, this makes a beautiful appetizer, but will also make a killer pasta sauce with some cream added in to stretch it. I hope you can find some small, wild scallops soon (frozen are great, as long as “Scallops” is the only ingredient listed on the bag), and give this a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 4-6 appetizer size portions:

1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 pound bay scallops

4-5 cloves minced garlic

1/2 cup white wine (NOT cooking wine)

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

4 tbsp cold butter, cubed

cayenne, salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley

buttered and toasted Italian bread slices

*Note for pasta sauce, add a 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream with the wine, and proceed as shown. Should make enough sauce for about 4 portions of pasta)

Brown Butter Pineapple Corn Muffins - Tastes Just Like Home's?

"Home" is a neighborhood restaurant I frequent, and they serve the most heavenly slice of cornbread. It's rich and dense, yet still has a nice light crumb. I'm not sure of all the ingredients, but I'm pretty confident it contains a fair amount of brown butter and seems to be studded with small particles of dried or candied pineapple.

You're probably wondering why I don't simply ask the chef for the recipe? Because that's no fun. There's a certain appeal to trying to duplicate a recipe without a recipe. Kind of like refusing to pull over for directions because the thrill of the search is just too riveting.

Anyway, this is my latest attempt at such mimicry, and comes to you in the form of muffins. When you're talking about cornbread, you're also talking about a big bowl of chili nearby, and nothing balances that big spoon in one hand like a warm corn muffin in the other.

Heads-Up: Michele and I are putting the finishing touches on our big food and wine pairing this weekend at the Frick Winery for the 22nd annual Passport to Dry Creek Valley. I'll try and post an update while on location, but if for any reason I'm incommunicado for the next couple days, that's what's up. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter

3/4 cup finely chopped dried sweetened pineapple (or dried unsweetened pineapple plus 1/2 cup sugar)

2 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon fine salt

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup yellow cornmeal

This is Not an Easter Bread Rerun – It's an Easter Bread Resurrection

I'm not that big on the whole organized religion thing (the resurrection joke in the title should have been a clue), so when I think of Easter, I think of one thing; warm, fragrant, shiny Easter bread (with sprinkles of course). If you grew up in an Italian-American home, chances are pretty good you've enjoyed something similar, but if you haven't, you should really consider giving this surprisingly easy recipe a try. Enjoy!

Click here to read the original post, watch the how-to video, and get all the ingredients.

Fresh, Homemade Flour Tortillas in No Time Flat

I was debating whether to call these supple, delectable discs, "tortillas," or "flatbreads," but since they were inspired by my testing of the Imusa tortilla press, seen herein, I decided to go with tortilla. This intro is dedicated to hungry SEO gurus everywhere.

Regardless of what you call them, if your only experience is with the dry, mundane supermarket varieties, you are in for a serious treat. Homemade tortillas are so much better that if you do decide to give these a try, be warned that you'll have a very hard time ever going back to the packaged option again.

Not only is the recipe very easy to make, there's no waiting hours for anything to rise, so in less than 30 minutes, you'll be enjoying the finest in hand-held meat delivery systems. Ironically, I failed to have any juicy grilled meat ready for the money shot, so I was forced to enjoy them au natural.

As I mention in the video, the hardest part of the entire procedure is rolling the dough balls into nice thin discs, but if you have a tortilla press this becomes very fast and easy. Since this post was made possible by my friends at Imusa, who also provided the press you see here, I'll included a couple links in case you want to add this apparatus to your kitchen tool collection.

I hope you give these a try soon, and your days of using store-bought tortillas comes to a warm, soft, and delicious end soon. Enjoy!

If you are interested in a tortilla press of your very own, here are a couple links:

Imusa Victoria Cast Iron Tortilla 6-1/2-Inch Press

Imusa Victoria Cast Iron Tortilla 8-Inch Press

Ingredients:

8 ounces all-purpose flour (about 1 3/4 cup), more as needed

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup hot water (about 105 degrees F.)

Savory Chocolate Sea Salt Crostini – Sooner Rather Than Later

The biggest challenge with presenting this chocolate sea salt crostini recipe is getting people to stop thinking, "dessert," and start thinking, "great special occasion savory snack." Not that there's anything wrong with this as a dessert (it's actually Michele's "favorite" dessert), but for my money it makes for a better, and very unique, hors d'oeuvre.

Speaking of money, you're going to need a little bit extra to do this recipe right. For this to work as a savory bite, the chocolate must be very dark, bittersweet, and world-class. Look for names that are hard to pronounce, and labels with percentage symbols are always a good sign (the higher %, the better for this).

For the bread, you're going to want to find your town's best baguette. The extra virgin olive oil should robust, peppery, and of the highest quality. Lastly, the salt must absolutely be the crystallized, flaky sea salt shown herein.

Once all these ingredients are assembled, the actual procedure is quite simple, and produces an impressive bite. The marriage of warm, crispy-edged bread, peppery olive oil, bittersweet chocolate, and briny sea salt is sublime. I think this is perfect for a holiday cocktail party, served right along side the rest of the savory appetizers.

Of course, if you're just not a chocolate hors d'oeuvre kind of person, and want to adapt this for a sweet treat, feel free. In that case, you can use a slightly sweeter chocolate, and maybe an olive oil from the lighter, fruitier end of the spectrum.

By the way, special thanks to my buddy Linda, from Salty Seattle, for the amazing homemade sea salt used in the video. I knew she had mad skills working with animal and vegetable, but mineral too? This makes her one of the rare, triple-threat foodies.

Just in case you don't have friends that make you sea salt, most gourmet grocery stores will carry several varieties. My personal favorite is Maldon, which can also be ordered online. Anyway, find these ingredients, plan a party, and share something extraordinary. Enjoy!




Savory Chocolate Sea Salt Crostini Ingredients:
sliced baguette
bittersweet chocolate
extra virgin olive oil
flaky type sea salt like Maldon

Holiday Pumpkin Bread in Theory and Practice

I could have just Googled a pumpkin bread recipe. I'm sure there are hundreds of excellent ones, tested and retested, right there for the taking. But I didn't, because I had something better, a theory. Theoretically speaking, there is nothing better than a good theory.

My theory was that if I took my banana bread recipe, which is one of my absolute favorites, and used pumpkin puree in place of the mashed, ripe bananas, I would have an equally impressive loaf.

So, what were the results of this grand pumpkin bread experiment? A very decent loaf of quick bread, which would make a handsome addition to any holiday dessert table! Having said that, next time I make it, I will be tweaking some things.

This was very good, but didn't have the I-can't-stop-eating-this-ness of the banana bread recipe. Considering the obvious fact that bananas and pumpkins are not the same thing, I will adjust the sweetness and fat content a bit to compensate.

Anyway, stay tuned for future updates, and if you happen to make any variations on this, I'd love to hear about it! Thanks, and enjoy!




Pumpkin Bread Recipe Ingredients:
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, soft
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 (15-oz) can pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon Chinese 5-Spice
1/8 teaspoon allspice
Mixed in a bowl:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup chopped roasted walnuts
Bake at 325 degrees F. for about 1 hour

Give Us Today Our Daily Bread and a Good Night's Sleep

I just landed a few hours ago after an exhausting, but really fun and productive trip to Little Rock. I'm not sure exactly when the videos will be ready to air, but when they are, you'll be the first to know. I'm pretty excited for you to see what we did, and hopefully you'll be able to use some of the recipes during the upcoming entertaining season.

I have a new video on how to use a pressure cooker to post tomorrow, but will treat myself to a good night's sleep before finishing it off. Stay tuned, and in the meantime I hope you enjoy this incredibly fascinating TED lecture on the art of baking bread by Peter Reinhart.

Speaking of bread, if you click on the picture above, you'll be taken to a great no-knead country loaf recipe that features a touch of pumkin that would make for a wonderful seasonal treat. If you watch the lecture I have a feeling you'll be inspired to get your hands into some dough.Enjoy!

Getting a Rise from a Ciabatta Bread Video Response

The entire time I've been posting videos to YouTube, I've been completely ignoring the messages that people were sending me video responses to my recipes. Actually, when I first started, I did look at a few of these, but they were always something spamy or much worse.

So, I never bothered to check back. Today, I was playing around with my account setting, and saw a huge backlog of these notices, so I took a gander. While most were not up to snuff, a few were pretty good, and I'll probably be posting them here at some point.

Here is a really cool one featuring our famous no-knead ciabatta bread recipe. It's called "18 Hour Time Lapse of Ciabatta Bread Dough Rise with Recipe" by brinstar117. Enjoy!

How to Make Parma Crisps (in Anticipation of Future Scrumptiousness)

I had originally planned to post the beans and greens recipe seen herein with a simple suggestion to serve it with some delicious, Parmesan crostini. They're such a basic garnish that I take for granted you all know how to whip up a quick batch, when in fact some of you may have never attempted something like this before.

So, I decided to do a quick little how-to for making what I call, Parma Crisps. These are a bit different in concept than your average tossed salad crouton. For those we probably spike the bread with tons of garlic, herbs, spices, and pepper, before making it all crispy and sufficiently decadent, to where it will distract us from even the most mundane of salads.

Here we have to remember these are simply to accessorize another dish of food – something rich, comforting, and with big, bold flavors. In that case I want something crispy, crunchy, with a nice nuttiness from the caramelized cheese, but that's about all. Any more than that, in this humble chef's opinion, would be superfluous.

Stay tuned for the beans and greens video recipe coming on Monday. Since you'll want to serve that with these, you may even think about practicing a few times over the weekend, you know, just to be safe. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
sliced baguette
olive oil (no need to use extra virgin)
freshly, finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Burrata Bruschetta with Grilled Figs – Bringing Sexy Back!

If you watch as much food television as I do, you hear the adjective "sexy" thrown around quite a bit, and more often than not, it just doesn't fit. No matter how nice a bowl of chili looks, or how beautifully a game hen glistens, they're not really "sexy."

This burrata bruschetta with grilled figs on the other hand? Totally "sexy!" If there were such a thing as word association flash cards of food, the most common result for this one would be "sexy." Okay, I'm going to stop using those quotation marks now.

Above and beyond how awesome this recipe tastes, it's so nice to be able to post such an aesthetically pleasing dish after the recent string of homely food. I appreciate all the nice comments about the sausage and zucchini stew, but if that thing was a blind date, it would have been described as, "having a nice personality."

Depending on the location, I can't guarantee you'll be able to find burrata and fresh black mission figs, but if you can, you really need to give this a try. I know someone will ask, so I'll tell you right now, there really isn't a great substitute for this heavenly cheese.

A very fresh mozzarella would be the closest, but it would still be like substituting for Beyonce with Wanda Sykes. That's no insult to Wanda Sykes (she has a great personality), but in the sexy department, Mrs. Jay-Z is in a whole other league, and so is this burrata and grilled fig bruschetta. Enjoy!




Ingredients:
burrata cheese
fresh figs
Italian bread
balsamic vinaigrette (1 part vinegar to 1 part extra virgin olive oil - shaken vigorously)
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Scone Home

I've been waiting almost 3 years to work an E.T. reference into one of my blog post titles.

For whatever reason, I've had quite a few requests lately for a scone recipe video. I should say at the outset, I've never made scones before (or at least never remember making scones before), and I've never been a big fan of eating them either.

I've always found them so dry and crumbly that I just assumed some devious Scottish café owner invented them to increase sales, since most of the scones I've tried take about five cups of coffee to wash down.

Then I thought, maybe I've just never had a really good one. So I did what any social media savvy professional video recipe blogger would do; I asked my friends on Twitter for a recipe.

I got many great suggestions for all kinds of wonderful sounding versions, but since I'd never made them before, I decided to just make a plain, very traditional version to start off with. I figured I'd get the basic recipe down before trying anything crazy.

This recipe is very slightly adapted from one by someone called "Friendlyfood" on All Recipes, who claims it was adapted from a version made at the Savoy hotel in London. I have to say, I am very impressed. It was light, tender, moist and very delicious.

By the way, a couple of my favorite foodies, Denise from ChezUs, and Jennifer from In Jennie's Kitchen, may also be posting scone recipes soon, and when they do, I will share those with you as well (and believe me, they won't be as plain as this one!).

Another friend of mine, Tamar from Starving off the Land, pointed out the controversy regarding the correct pronunciation. While most Americans (and by most, I mean all) say it so it rhymes with "cone," the proper articulation is said to rhyme with "John."

As you know, I've never been big on pronouncing things correctly, and I'm not about to start now, but I wanted to point that out in case you find yourself in Scotland someday. Hey, you don't want to sound like a tourist, or worse, a Brit.

One last thing, you'll see me add the currants along with the wet ingredients. I don't understand why recipes for cookies, muffins, etc., call for fruit, nuts, and/or chips to be stirred in after the wet ingredients are mixed in. These types of recipes suffer greatly from over mixing, so I say add the chunky bits when you combine the wet and dry. Having said that, I'm not a baker, so maybe there's a reason for this common recipe instruction. Is there? Anyway, enjoy!




Ingredients:
8 ounces by weight all-purpose flour (about 1 3/4 cups)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup white sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup dried currants
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sour cream
(and 1 egg plus 1 tablespoon milk for the wash)

Looking for something a little less traditional? Check out these other great looking scone recipes:
Oatmeal Raspberry Scones from Joy the Baker
Blueberry Scones with Lemon Glaze from Steamy Kitchen
Dreamy Cream Scones from Smitten Kitchen
White Chocolate & Sour Cherry Scones from David Lebovitz