For dinner tonight,
I'm making my special cornbread
with toppings of jalapeno, tomato, and onion.
We've bought more softshells,
some to eat tonight, and others to freeze for later,
since the softshell season this spring
has been cut short due to climactic conditions.
I believe some strong winds blew the little critters back out.
And instead of battering and frying our softshells
as we usually do,
we're going to grill them
for a bit of a change.
I've never grilled them before,
so I'm looking forward to trying them this way.
Also, I'll be cooking some scallop and proscuitto roll-ups.
So, let's get started.
First, my cornbread.
yellow cornmeal
Crisco
milk
buttermilk
eggs
tomatoes
onions
cumin
coriander
Cheddar and Monterey Jack cheeses
jalapenos
green olives
fresh cilantro
(And I forgot to put in the baking powder,
salt, and pepper.)
to which I added 1 tsp. baking powder,
1 1/2tsps. salt,
and 1 tsp. pepper.
I mixed the dry ingredients,
then added in 1 cup milk and 1/2 cup buttermilk, for a bit of a tang.
If you don't have buttermilk, just use all milk.
I had heated my oven to 350, put 3 TB of Crisco in my 8" baking dish, melted it, then whisked the melted shortening into the cornbread batter.The texture immediately changes to an almost clumpy messy thing.
I had an ear of corn left over from the corn porn from our meal the other day, so I cut off the kernels of the ear and added that to the cornbread batter.
If you don't have fresh corn, use a can of drained corn. Pour the cornbread batter into the baking dish.
Add sliced tomatoes to the adult side of the cornbread.
Next some sliced onions went on.
And some jalapeno slices and sliced green olives.
And now the cornbread is ready for the grated cheese and the oven.
Except ...
I think he'd seen Tyler Florence use pork cracklin's
in cornbread, so he wanted to try this.
arranged toppings, so I could put the pork cracklin's in there.
them down in the batter.
Then he haphazardly threw my toppings back on.
Sheesh.
Tip #178:
To use up leftover cornbread,
thinly slice and saute in butter until nicely browned
and serve for breakfast.
You'll never have leftover cornbread.
My children love this.
Now, on to my scallops.
What I wanted to do,
was slice my scallop into a ribbon by
slowly rolling the scallop
with my knife poised parallel to the cutting surface.
making about a 1/8 inch thick slice.
trying to make a slice as evenly as I could.
I kept rolling out my scallop and slicing through ...
and had a nice, thin scallop ribbon.
I'm doing it again.
And notice,
practice does make perfect.
Start with your knife parallel to the cutting surface,
1/8 - 1/16 thick,
and slowly roll the scallop back
as you press your knife into the flesh.
That's a nice scallop ribbon.
And roll up.
And my scallops are ready to cook.
I heated my cast iron pan,
added vegetable oil with a bit of Land o' Lakes butter,
heated the butter mixture to almost browning,
1 part black sesame seeds
1 part white sesame seeds
1/2 part red chili flakes
I lightly toasted this mixture in a dry skillet.
then added the larger scallops with the proscuitto.
The smaller scallops without the proscuitto,
I added later and cooked for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes each side.
Now on to the softshells.
As I said, we're going to grill these soft shells tonight.
I've never grilled soft shells before.
I've always fried them.
But our dear friends, Ian and Annette Bloomfield,
introduced us to this method.
(And that would be Ian with a long I.
Eye-un, not Ee-un.)
I must admit,
I was a bit apprehensive,
but I'm always up to trying something new.
He likes a bit of the mustard left on them.
So when he wasn't watching,
I rinsed all the yellow gunk out.
Now, my basting sauce for the softshells.
Here's melted butter and lemon juice
with freshly ground pepper
to which I added minced garlic ...
... and some Chardonnay.
I sprinkled a tiny bit of Montreal Steak Seasoning over the crabs.
And brushed them with the butter mixture.
and basted.
here are the soft shells.
and cornbread.
I could taste the sweetness of the crab
along with the crunch of the crab,
and the flavors of the butter, garlic, wine,
and the slight spice of the Montreal seasoning.
I was very happily surprised,
so I thank you Ian and Annette
for this new way to prepare soft shells.
I will certainly grill soft shells again,
but next time I'll peel off that top layer of shell.
Ian told Mr. Hawthorne to do that,
but Mr. H. thinks he knows it all,
so he didn't do it.
A grilled layer of soft shell is like eating paper.
Not a good thing.
But the rest of the crab was wonderful
and the grilled flavor just gave it a whole different layer of goodness.
The scallops rolled with the proscuitto were lovely.
The light taste of the proscuitto gave the scallops
just a hint of saltiness and smokiness.
The seasoning with the toasted sesame seeds and pepper flakes
gave it just the right amount of boost.
The candied grapefruit rind was a perfect complement.
The cornmeal was corny and spicy with the jalapenos.
And the pork cracklin's gave it an underlying smoky, porkiness.
Not overpowering.
But another layer of flavor.
Another winning meal.
The scallop rolls look wonderful. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteBut was rolling the scallops that much better than just wrapping?
ReplyDelete