Guest Post: Cyndi from Yes You Can Cook!

Hey all!

I’ve officially survived the first day of camp… there were no meltdowns, no accidents, lots of bowling, and a lot of fun.

I know you’ve been waiting since last August for another one of these, so here goes…

Today’s CAMPER QUOTE OF THE DAY! Two 5 year old girls walk in this morning, put their arms around each other, come up to me, and proudly declare: “Mara, just so you know, we’re BFFs and HAVE to sit together on the bus.”

Now, I bring you the amazing Cyndi from not one but TWO wonderful cooking blogs: Yes You Can Cook and Yes You Can Grill

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When Mara invited me to share a recipe with her wonderful What’s For Dinner fans, I remembered that she said she did not cook scallops. She noted the price (OUCH – $16.99 a pound here currently) and that she hated to chance messing up such expensive seafood which will probably go higher with the oceanic ecological issues currently.

When the boys were little, we lived in Wallops Island Virginia (right next to Chincoteague – the pony island), so we had easy access to fresh seafood. Being an inlander prior, I was nervous about tackling seafood. But . . .

There was this elderly fisherman who had a little seafood stand there on the island, and I stopped one day and was looking at the seafood. I wanted shrimp, but I wasn’t quite sure how to cook shrimp, so I asked him how to make shrimp. He told me the easiest way possible (boil with Old Bay), and that began our friendship. I would stop and buy seafood, and he would tell me how to cook it.

The first time I made scallops was when we had a friend visiting and asked about his favorite seafood. He said scallops. Hum. I had never been a big fan of those, but I visited my fisherman friend, and he told me how to make them. As always, he kept it nice and simple.

First, the best scallops for making Fisherman Scallops are the ones around a quarter to a half dollar size. If they are the mini scallops, the balance with the breading is too heavy, and if they are huge, then it’s hard to get them cooked through just right. On the bigger ones, I just cut them in half.

Fisherman Pan Fried Scallops

Ingredients:

• 1 pound medium sized scallops
• Plain Flour (about ½ to ¾ cup)
• 1 tsp. Old Bay seasoning (or other favorite seafood boil seasoning)
• ½ tsp sea salt (or regular salt is fine as well as seasoning salt)

*Note – It is easy to adjust this recipe for larger batches. Just keep the ratios close. Also, we do go a bit heavier on the Old Bay here, but this a good starting point. If you want more zip, just add more Old Bay.

Directions:

1. Combine flour, Old Bay, and salt in a brown paper sandwich bag and drop scallops in bag. Shake well and put in refrigerator for 20 minutes or more, so the flour batter sticks.
2. Heat about ¼ inch cooking oil in a skillet until medium hot. The scallops should sizzle a bit when put in.
3. Do shake off the excess flour before putting scallops in the pan, or the grease gets messy.
4. Fry until the bottom of the scallops are golden brown and then flip and do the same for the other side. Seafood cooks fast, so by the time you have a nice color, the scallops are cooked through if they are medium sized.
5. Drain scallops on paper towels to absorb any excess oil and then put on a platter or in a bowl to serve.

I have turned many folks into scallop fans with this really simple recipe. My Dad always said he did not like scallops. I would get a combination of shrimp and scallops when I had my parents over for a seafood dinner. Over time, I noticed that we ran out of scallops and had shrimp left over. That seemed odd. Then, I figured out that my Dad had changed his mind and had decided scallops really are fabulous when cooked this way. So, I just started buying less shrimp and more scallops for our seafood feasts.

Thanks Cyndi!! Maybe I’ll actually risk it and try cooking scallops soon…

Tagged as: guest post, seafood, simple recipe