How to Cook Sea Scallops

Part of the Video Series How to Cook Lobster, Crab, & Shrimp

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Preparing your scallops and beginning the cooking process; learn this and more in this free online instructional cooking video about seafood taught by an expert.

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Posted by Maitri on Friday, 02 May, 2008 at 1:58 PM

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Nice ideas! I've always used chervil and basil, not clarified the butter, and deglazed with white zinfandel. (I know, I know, but I do drink it.) I think I'll skip the dill, but clarifying the butter isn't a lot of trouble and if I go light on the thyme and keep the basil, the garlic is a nice idea! Thanks for sharing this! (I think I may have been over-cooking, and this is VERY helpful advice for me. I'm seldom able to cook anymore, and can't afford everything I'd like to have as often as I'd enjoy, so it's important to do it right when I can cook.) Many thanks!

Video Transcript

How to Cook Sea Scallops
Hi! We are going to show you how to make some sea scallops today. I've got some U10 size sea scallops that are beautiful actually and these are crusty scallops; there's big difference. The previously frozen scallops tend to be very rough once they are cooked. These are fresh and the U10 meaning there are about 10 of them to a pound. So I've got a non-stick Teflon saute pan here and I got almost medium high heat and I got some clarified butter in it. What we are going to do is this is just a real gentle seafood protein so we just want to use a real quick cooking process on it. I've got some fresh chopped garlic here and I am going to throw that in my clarified butter first and just have to get a nice good sweat and get some aromas to come out of that first. As soon as that happens, I am actually going to throw in an herb mixture here and I've got some dill, some thyme and some basil and I want that to blend immediately as well which is what is doing and immediately upon doing that, we will throw those scallops in. So I want everything cooked together and quickly and I want to keep everything moving so I am going to go ahead and raise this heat a little bit. What is going to happen is that as these guys start turning the colors we want them to, we will flip these around. I don't want my garlic to get too incredibly brown because by the time that the garlic does get to that golden color, the scallops will be finished at that point. We are going to come back here in just a minute and I am going to show you how to deglaze this pan because I am going to have some residual butter left still and what I have is a Vinho Verde. It's a wine from Portugal, white wine that has a very low acidity and it does really well with seafood so I have a dab of that that I am going to pour in here to deglaze with and I'll come right back and finish these off.

About the Expert

Expert: Louis Ortiz is a professional chef instructor at a culinary institute. He has been working in the culinary industry for 10 years. Read More