Yes, this is our third post of the day. We have been making lots of good food lately and today was the culmination. We were planning our Sunday meal on this beautiful March afternoon. I really wanted to make meatloaf. I bought eggs the other day for brunch and I wanted to use some of the eggs for the meatloaf. Ryan was inspired by the 60 degree sunny day and suggested something to cook on the grill. He stayed home and studied while I went to the grocery. While I was at the grocery store, I saw there was a special on scallops, but I thought that might be too difficult so I passed them by. When I shop for meat I always feel overwhelmed, I never know what cut is good or bad or if the price is good. So I went up to the butcher counter and saw there were boneless New York strip steaks on special. The strip steaks were huge cuts of meat and I knew that I could never eat a whole one by myself so I had the idea of just buying one and then going back to the seafood counter and buying a few of the scallops on special and doing a surf and turf. I got a few other essentials at the store and headed home to see what Ryan would think of my idea.
When Ryan saw the steak and scallops he was definitely on board and we got to cooking. Ryan was in charge of the steak (of course) and I was in charge of the scallops. I'll let Ryan talk about the steak, but first I'll talk about the scallops. They were still a little frozen so I immediately got them in a collander and turned on the faucet on icy cold and a very slow drip to slowly defrost them completely. I found a really simple recipe in the Cooking Light Italian cookbook we got from my parents for Christmas, sauteed scallops with parsley and garlic.
Once the scallops were defrosted I patted them with a paper towel to pull out some of the moisture and salted and peppered them on each side. When the steaks were almost finished, I heated a sautee pan on medium-high heat and added olive oil to the pan. When that was ready I added the scallops and let them cook on each side for 2 1/2 minutes. When they were done I removed them from the pan, lowered the heat and then added 1/2 tbsp. of butter to the same sautee pan and let it melt. Once the butter melted I added fresh garlic and dried parsley and let the garlic cook a little bit. Once the garlic was cooked, I put the scallops back in the pan and tossed them in the butter/garlic/parsley sauce. They turned out absolutely amazing and they were a great complement to Ryan's awesome steak. I'll let him take it from here...
What up my fellow foodie wannabes? So, like Erin said, she brought home a beautiful piece of meat. A classic N.Y. strip. It looked so good, and Erin's recipe for scallops were so simple, I decided to keep it simple when cooking the steak and making sure to let the great ingredients speak for themselves. I rubbed the steak down with some olive oil and seasoned each side with a bunch of salt and freshly cracked black pepper. I added the steak to the grill on medium-high heat, for about 4 minutes on each side. The high flame seared and blackened each side with all the olive oil, salt and pepper forming a wonderful crust. Another key was to let it sit for about 10 minutes before cutting it. I cut it in half and it was cooked so that the center was bright pink, but the outside was crusted with flavor: perfectly medium cooked. I could have even gone medium rare, but it was delicious, hearty and pretty tender.
Like Erin said, the scallops and steak made for a perfect combination. While the steak was red, salty, juicy and hearty; the scallops were light and were so buttery with a light garlic sauce and a hint of lemon that was fresh and delicate. We finished the meal with a simple baby spinach and onion salad, some good French bread and some corn: an absolutely perfect Sunday meal.
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