Jan,
 
Bay Scallops a la St. Joe Bay
 
First you have to catch the scallops. We did this at St. Joe Bay many years
ago.  We could snorkel in the shallows and scare them out of the grass.
You sort of make your shadow stretch over the grass as you swim and the
scallops think you are one huge starfish and they swim up out of the grass
to escape. Dirty trick.  I don't  think you can do this without a license
any more, and it is probably illegal in some other several dozen ways these
days,  and the scallops are not  so plentiful. (No, we didn't eat them all!
 The next night we had a blue crab feast, and smoked mullet salad  the
next. But those are other phyla)
 
You can only do this over a beach campfire or maybe a Coleman stove...won't
work in a house.
 
Next you then have to clean the scallops. That is fun or impossbile,
depending on how many bottles of wine you have on hand. You take this geat
big scallop and extract this itty bitty morsel of meat from it. You do this
a lot, til you run out of scallops and your fingers are getting bloody.
 
Then you heat a big iron skillet and pour in some olive oil, and
some crushed garlic  and get the garlic sizzling over said beach fire.
Dump in the scallops and  toss them around for a few minutes over the fire.
 Then throw some finely chopped parsley over all and put it on picnic
plates.  Deglaze the pan (that's haut cuisinese for rinsing out the crisp
bits) with some of the wine you haven't drunk and pour it over the
scallops.  Eat it with a lot of crusty French or Italian bread or that San
Francisco Sourdough the sadists have been dragging in front of us, all
buttery and garlicked, and mop up the juices with the bread.  Mmmm.
 
Then sort through the shells for ones you want to keep for your collection.
Argopecten irradians concentricus is what we got but this might work with
your scallops too if you can find them.  I repeat my warning...this will
NOT taste as good done indoors, and it will not be as good with bought
scallops.  No way!
 
Lynn Scheu
Louisville, KY, Site of the 1999 COA Convention
"You'll luv Loo' a vul"
 
 
 
>Hello all,
>
>The Conch-L world may be a strange world (where discussions about how
>many clams live in SF Bay, "degenerate" in poop-stories, to ressurect as
>a how-to-prepare-the-best-soup cook book) but it is the only world where
>I can ask for delicious recipies containing molluscs as an ingredient.
>So come on, all you chefs ! In your kitchens, warm up the stoves and let
>us know how you cook your Mytilus, Haliotis or Pecten !
>Maybe we can put up a special section in the Conch-L archives with this
>thread : could be great !  "Chez Clam, we serve two tides a day..."
>I've a reservation for 8 PM at table 7 (4 persons)....
>
>Jan Haspeslagh
>Belgium
>
>