Corn! Part 2

Here's a really fabulous recipe for these last few weeks of summer. It combines seafood, corn and a little spice, is easy to put together, and pretty much constitutes a full meal on its own, though you could make a tomato or green salad alongside it. And then you're set: a summery, (reasonably) healthy, easy, seasonal dish that--bonus!--looks pretty on the plate, too. (And you don't need a grill to make it; I used a cast-iron grill pan and it worked marvelously.)

To make Grilled Scallops with Mexican Corn Salad, you start by grilling ears of corn, letting the kernels get charred in places and a little blistery in others. Once they're done and cool enough to handle, you cut the kernels off the cob, and mix them with a light dressing of garlic, red onion, lime juice, mayonnaise (I said this dish was reasonably healthy) and chile powder. You can add cotija or ricotta salata cheese, though I skipped it, since I thought the mayo would lend the dish enough creaminess (which it did--for our taste, anyway).

Corn salad done, you grill sea scallops, which takes all of six or so minutes, and lay them atop the corn. Squirt a little lime juice on top, and voila! The corn salad has a fantastic kick (I did add a touch of hot sauce in addition to the chile powder), and a little heft from the mayo. The kernels of corn are the perfect springy contrast to the tender scallops. Fork and I ate every last bite of this terrific meal on a recent weeknight, alongside a green salad, and then enjoyed some watermelon sorbet for dessert. Ah, summer!--S

Grilled Scallops with Mexican Corn Salad

serves 4

1 garlic clove, minced
1 T minced red onion
2 T fresh lime juice
8 small ears of corn, husked
Vegetable oil, for brushing
1/3 c mayonnaise
1 t pure ancho chile powder
4 oz cotija or ricotta salata cheese, crumbled (1 1/4 c)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Hot sauce
12 large sea scallops
Lime wedges, for serving

1. Light a grill. In a large bowl, toss the garlic and onion with the lime juice and let stand for 10 minutes.
2. Brush the corn with oil and grill over moderate heat until charred and just tender, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a work surface and cut the kernels off the cobs.
3. Whisk the mayonnaise and chile powder into the garlic, onion and lime juice. Add the cheese and corn to the bowl and toss. Season with salt, pepper and hot sauce.
4. Brush the scallops with vegetable oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill over high heat until nicely browned and barely cooked through, about 3 minutes per side. Spoon the corn salad onto 4 plates and top with the scallops. Serve with lime wedges.

Recipe courtesy of Food & Wine

Summer's Visit

Yes, springtime's all about asparagus, rhubarb and ramps, but 85 degrees in April calls for summertime food. I'm talking potato salad, some vegetables thrown together in a quick dressing, and a terrific new scallop dish that I can easily see becoming a regular meal around here once summer arrives for good.

The recipe comes from Rick Moonen's Fish Without a Doubt, a book I'd skimmed for months but hadn't actually cooked from until recently. The marinade caught my eye not only because of its sweet-spicy combination, but because it looked so simple (and I was really needing a simple recipe, having run a half-marathon that morning in 80 degrees, and having totally flopped at dinner the night before). Sea Scallops with Jalapeno-Grapefruit Marinade it was.

The marinade is pretty tart from grapefruit juice and zest, and considerably spicy, with about one and a half diced jalapenos, seeds, ribs and all. But you're only marinating the scallops in the jalapenos, not actually eating them, so it's a very palatable spice. The marinade's other ingredients are cilantro, scallions and dry vermouth (you could probably use a dry white wine)--all summertime staples around here. After marinating the scallops for an hour, we seared them on a griddle (obviously if you had a grill you would use it here) for about three minutes per side.

They were fantastic. A little spicy, and sweet from the grapefruit. Moonen says this is terrific with head-on shrimp, too, which I'll definitely try once summer's here for good.--S

Sea Scallops with Jalapeno-Grapefruit Marinade

Serves 4 (8 as an appetizer)

Grated zest of 1 grapefruit
Juice of 2 grapefruits (about 1 1/3 c, and pulp is fine)
1/4 c minced jalapeno chiles (with seeds)
1/4 c chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 c chopped scallions
1/3 c dry vermouth
3 T olive oil
16 large sea scallops, tough bits removed
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Stir the grapefruit zest and juice together with the jalapenos, cilantro, scallions, vermouth and olive oil in a baking dish or plastic container.
2. Immerse the scallops in the marinade, cover, and refrigerate for 1 hour.
3. Prepare a grill so it's very hot.
4. Take the scallops out of the marinade. Season them with salt and pepper and brush them with vegetable oil.
5. Brush the grill with vegetable oil. Grill the scallops for 3 minutes per side. Scallops are like little sponges--they soak up the marinade, which will slow down the cooking. Don't expect these to get very brown, though you should have grill marks.

Recipe courtesy of Fish Without a Doubt

Summer Clambake

Boy, I woke up with a big one today. A craving that, is. By the time I had my morning coffee I'd decided I wanted scallops for dinner. I went to the fish store at lunchtime, and i knew i was in businesss when the fishmonger smiled at my order. "These are the best scallops I've had all year," he said. I'll say, they were were lovely. The littlenecks caught my eye too, so I picked up a dozen and a summer clambake was born.

Spoon added a loaf of french bread, some corn from the market and a bottle of Pinot Grigio and hit the kitchen to whip up a quick and glorious feast of grilled sea scallops with steamed little neck clams (clam juice on the side, with a dash of fresh mint, great for the french bread). On the side we had a crisp salad of romaine hearts, red onion, fresh corn and bleu cheese and some leftover quinoa. Quinoa is a grain not unlike coucous. Spoon makes a deicious cold quinoa salad with black beans, tomato, green onion and lime juice. For dessert, homemade ice cream: let me hand it over to Spoon...--F

For this week's ice cream installment, I wanted to make some sort of raspberry chocolate ice cream, but by the time I got to the market this evening, every stand was out of raspberries. One stand was selling gooseberries, and after tasting one, I figured I'd try them, not as a substitute, per se, but as an alternate in the Chocolate-Raspberry Ice Cream recipe from The Perfect Scoop.

I'd noticed gooseberries around the market over the past few weeks; they seem to be this year's it fruit. The ones I bought are red, although gooseberries also come in green. They resemble grapes, with little pinstripes running across each one vertically, and taste sweet and tangy. They have prickly tips, which were a little annoying to remove, but I tried to get into the Zen of the activity, which helped.

This Philadelphia-style ice cream calls for cooking heavy cream, sugar and dutch-process cocoa powder on the stove, and then steeping the berries in that mixture, lid on, for 10 minutes. You then puree the concoction, chill it and churn it. The finished product is a rather elegant frozen dessert. Like the blueberry ice cream, this ice cream is best eaten sparingly--one scoop at a time. Take it easy, and, in the words of the ice cream vendor my mom used to buy ice cream from as a kid, "take your tongue for a sleighride!"--S

Spring Is Busting Out All Over

It started with a lime sorbet I made a few weeks ago, and then continued with Fork's and my consumption of fresh rhubarb and strawberries from the market. Then I went on an asparagus bender, and following that, made more ice cream--orange, this time. And then I brewed some peach iced tea. I have hit my spring stride, people, and let me tell you, it's maaahvelous.

So this Memorial Day weekend, I was all pumped to fire up a grill and cook something over an open flame. Figuring I have the next three months to pig out on burgers and dogs, I thought, why not kick off the season with some grilled bivalves? My mom was in the mood for scallops, so we pulled out Micol Negrin's excellent book The Italian Grill, and ran with a recipe for Grilled Scallops with Tri-Color Pepper Medley. First we sliced red, orange and yellow peppers, and sauteed them with garlic and lime zest, sprinkling them with chopped basil once they were tender. Then we dipped bay scallops in olive oil, coated them in salt and pepper, and grilled them--on the Vebbah, of course--for about five minutes. And then we laid them over the peppers on a plate, and topped the whole thing with lime juice and chopped mint. On the side: white bean-tomato salad, arugula salad and potato salad. What a splendid alfresco meal.

Tonight I scored with a springtime veggie from the Greenmarket: Japanese turnips. I wanted to make something from a new cookbook I'm already loving, The Flexitarian Table, and the Butter-Braised Radishes with Their Greens seemed seasonally appropriate. The farmer told me I could substitute turnips for the radishes, and I think I should go back to the market on Friday to thank her. These turnips were great: surprisingly sweet and mild. They were a delicious accompaniment to Crispy Pressed Chicken with Garlic and Mint, which is similar to a dish my mom makes called Chicken Under a Brick. Both entail pressing the chicken with something heavy to speed up the cooking time and force out the fat, which results in crispy skin.

Wonder how hot dogs under a brick would be...--S