Sea Scallops with a Creole “Cream” Sauce

Plan Z Phase: This is a Z2 (ZReduction) recipe. You can make this dish with any fish. I just was in the mood for scallops.

Servings: Serves 2 (see notes for serving size for sauce below in the instructions)

Ingredients:

  • 12 oz of sea scallops (those are the large ones). Around 8- 10 of them.
  • olive oil spray

For the sauce

  • 1 bunch of green onions, chopped. White and light green parts only.
  • ½ of a large onion, chopped
  • 1 red bell pepper chopped; seeds removed
  • 3 cloves of minced garlic (jar garlic will do for this dish)
  • 1 tsp of Italian seasoning
  • 1-2 teaspoons of chili powder (to your taste)
  • 1 tsp of dried lemon peel
  • 28 of canned crushed tomatoes
  • 1 cup of water
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/3 cup of whole milk (optional)

Instructions:

Prepare the sauce first because the scallops cook quickly.

In a large sauce pan add the two types of onion, red bell pepper, garlic, seasonings, crushed tomatoes and the water. Bring to a boil. Turn down to medium to simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Either let cool down or carefully transfer the contents to your blender. You are going to whiz the mixture to make it smooth. You might need to do this in two batches depending on how large your blender is. Be very careful. Be sure to put a towel over the top of the blender top and hold it securely while you turn the blender on low. Sometimes the force of the blender combined with the heat can blow the top off and  you don’t want blazing hot tomato sauce flying around your kitchen. Turn blender up to puree but keep your hand on the top.

When you have it all blended return it to the sauce pan. Add the milk and stir thoroughly. Heat on medium-low until heated through.

Serving size for the sauce on Z2 is 1/3 cup. You can then still have your regular veggie portion. There will plenty of extra sauce. You can eat the leftovers as soup. Add cooked shrimp as a protein or have it alongside any other protein.

For the scallops:

Rinse and dry the scallops. Be sure to dry them well with paper towel. The dryer they are the better they will sear and get a crust on them.

In a large sauté pan, spritz lightly with olive oil. Let it heat up on medium-high until almost smoking. Then carefully place each scallop in the pan. Make sure they are at least 1” apart from each other or they won’t sear. If they don’t sear and get a crust it’s nothing horrible. They will taste great anyway but if you are able to keep them apart the moisture won’t transfer and they will brown.

Scallops don’t take long to cook. Maybe 3 – 5 minutes at most.  Some like their scallops to be almost medium rare. My husband likes his fully cooked so the time will vary depending on what you want. I sear mine on one side for 3 minutes WITHOUT TOUCHING THEM and then turn them over. If you futz with them they won’t get a crust on them.

Pour the sauce on the pan and spread it out. Then top with the scallops.

Enjoy!

Cheers,