Rosie Makes Sauteed Scallops And Green Bean With Almonds.

I always have a few posts in draft form to use when I haven't had time to post on my daily goings-on. This is one of them. Here's our dinner from November 9. Lightly battered sauteed scallops with sauteed green beans and almonds. FYI, total time for this meal was 32 minutes. And I was taking my time.

We found all these organic haricots verts on the rolling rack of going out of date, on their last legs vegetables at Harris Teeter for just $1.00.

I melted some LOLUB (Land of Lakes unsalted butter) and added a little ELBOO (Extra Light Bertolli Olive Oil) and dropped in the rinsed beans.

I cooked for 2 minutes over medium heat ...

... then added a little sugar in along with some freshly ground salt and pepper.

A minute later I added in a handful of almonds.

Another minute later I added in a couple teaspoons of soy sauce.

I added some water, covered the beans, turned off the heat and started on the scallops. Previously,

I had rinsed and drained the scallops ...

... and prepared my batter. I wanted just a mere dusting so I used Gold Medal Wondra flour and for my seasoning I used a combination of spices I've had in my fridge ever since I made the tuna from the Alinea cookbook. (Essentially, the Alinea recipe called for tuna jerky. I just couldn't bring myself to do that. I had sushi grade tuna and I refused to turn it into leather.) The spice mixture is from that recipe. It's basically 1 part red chili flakes 2 parts black sesame seeds 2 parts white sesame seeds I just toasted these in a small dry skillet then saved them in the fridge in an air-tight container. Caution: Be sure you have plenty of ventilation. Toasting chili flakes can be quite hazardous to your lungs.

I added the Alinea spice mixture to the Wondra flour and mixed well.

I barely coated the scallops with the flour mixture.

I put the three largest scallops in the pan first (after heating up the ELBOO and LOLUB), cooked for a minute, then added in the smaller scallops.

After cooking the scallops for 4 minutes, I added in some white wine to deglaze a bit.

Dinner is almost ready.

I added a bit of butter back to the goody bits.

Heated it up, then added more white wine to deglaze.

Reduced a bit and my sauce is ready.

I plated the green beans and almonds and sauce.

Then I added the scallops.

Here' s my plate with a zesting of lemon atop the green beans.

Mr. Hawthorne raved about the green beans. They were lovingly cooked to crisp/tender perfection. The addition of 1-2 teaspoons of sugar augmented the natural sweetness of the beans. The soy put a new dimension spin on the mix. The almonds added another crunch, texture, and flavor. Too bad he doesn't like lemon zest. The zest on my beans gave them a lovely lightness and pop. The scallops were to.die.for. Sweet, succulent, and scallopy. The dusting of seasoned flour was perfect for the delicate flavor of the scallops. It's not a batter. It's a light dusting and lets the scallops shine.