Scallops with Caramel-Orange Sauce and Spiced Butter-Glazed Carrots
This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice is the dessert Paris-Brest, a celebratory creamy puff ring made from light pastry dough called pâte à choux. Already this sounds complicated, doesn’t it? It was created in 1891 to honor the Union Des Audax Français, an amateur bicycle race that is still peddling strong today.
Paris-Brest is a crowd-pleaser, promising to produce ou’s and ah’s from anyone who worships at the altar of caramelized almonds, vanilla pastry cream and Crème Anglaise. That’s why I decided to save this masterpiece to bake for my spandex-clad biking buddies when I return to Colorado this spring.
INSTEAD, TRY THIS MENU
- Spiced Butter-Glazed Carrots. The carrots are dirty-fresh from Cambria’s Friday Farmers Market.
Instead I took advantage of the Central Coast’s largesse and made Savory Scallops with Caramel-Orange Sauce and Spiced Butter-Glazed Carrots. For me, it’s make-cup week. The recipes were made in 2011 before I joined FFWD. Dorie always delivers delicious. These two sweet/savory combos were a perfect light dinner to enjoy while watching the Grammy’s.
These little guys are fresh and tasty sea scallops.
The Caramel-Orange Sauce is a sweetheart of a compliment to the scallops.
When I visited Pier 46 Seafood to buy scallops, my fishmongerette, Amber, suggested small scallops rather than the large called for in this recipe. The prep and cooking time are the same. Here’s a tip. Dorie’s simplistic technique for the caramel sauce is one to commit to your memory bank. About those carrots? When you start with carrots just pulled from the earth, adding just a spice or two and chicken broth, there’s very little to say but thank you, Mother Nature.
I stopped by the Hearst Ranch Winery in nearby San Simeon to pick up wine for this menu. Ryan, who was working at the tasting bar, urged me to try their award-winning Three Sisters Cuvée red wine, a mixture of Grenache and Syrah grapes. It slide down easily.
ADAPTING TO ANY KITCHEN, STEP-by-STEP
If there is one question nagging at you after reading my three recent posts from Cambria, I suspect it would be, “How does that woman turn out this amazing food while working out of a rental kitchen?”
Here’s the answer, a how-to on cooking in strange spaces. My only criteria when renting a winter house in Cambria was that it be by the ocean and have a gas range. Because of a calendar snafu, my Realtors found me two houses by the ocean with gas ranges. One house for 5 weeks and the house I wanted for 8. If nothing else, I’m all about flexibility.
Traveling Tools: mandoline, electric grill, dutch oven, frittata pan, scales, Valentine molds, knives, juicer and. springform pan. Food Processor hidden from view..
While on-the-road most cooks know what equipment they must own, what they can live with and what, if necessary, can be purchased. This is what I packed: 1) ten cookbooks including Ottolenghi’s Plenty and Jerusalem, Madison’s Vegetable Literacy, Pereman’s Smitten Kitchen and Canal House Cooks Every Day; 2) Pensey’s spices; 3) my chef’s and paring knives; 4) equipment ranging from my food processor to a Wagner Magnalite cast aluminum pot; and 5) a 4-quart crockpot, acquired here.
Just as important as what I lugged from Colorado is what happened after my arrival. The house is lovely but the kitchen wasn’t feeling that love. Disarray is the word. First I scrubbed and scoured. Then I organized. I don’t mind grease and spills but I insist they be my grease and spills. After this thorough once-over and a trip to Trader Joe’s, my rental kitchen was ready-to-roll.
Having found ten cutting boards in my rental kitchen, I’m thinking of holding a garage sale.
What is insane about this particular kitchen is what’s here and what isn’t. There are 10 cutting boards. (I plead guilty to sometimes exaggerating so I snapped a photo. Count ’em.) It’s taken me three weeks to find potholders but during that hunt I counted 36 dishtowels. Although this is wine country, I only have two red wine glasses and six white, all with various logos. There is no paring knife but several huge plastic bowls (I’m thinking pretzels). Several pieces of the Crate & Barrel dinnerware are chipped or cracked. I’ve relegated them to the garage. I couldn’t set a table for six but since I’m not here to party, I don’t care.
As for the by the ocean requirement, I have no complaint!
These gorgeous strawberries are finally showing up at our local farmers markets.
If you would like to see the spectacular Paris-Brest created by my colleagues, go here. To find the recipes for scallops, Dorie’s caramel sauce and carrots, go here and here. French Fridays with Dorie is an international cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan’s “Around my French Table, more than 300 recipes from my home to yours.”
I don’t have a sweet tooth and was a bit reluctant to do the Paris Brest myself but it tugged at my memories and I had no choice. So I made it and brought it to work and scored points that way. Its always interesting to see people’s travel essentials for camping in a new kitchen. I actually take my Le Creuset dutch oven with me on road trips where I am expected to cook for ‘the gang’. (Which is always.) This looks like a wonderful Grammy dinner! I forgot about those scallops!
These scallops are one of my favorite FFwD dishes! LOL…I’m glad to know I’m not the only crazy foodie!
Look at you, Miss Aspen/ Cambria with her farmer’s market carrots in January. I have a feeling that I would be no less insane with my haul if I had to live in a rental for 3 months…
Those scallops were so good. I never would have thought that caramel and seafood were a thing, but my oh my I am so glad they are 🙂
XO
I’m totally with you regarding the gas range Mary. I can do without a lot of things but, once you’ve cooked with gas, it’s hard to go the other way. Sounds like you’re having a wonderful time despite the handicaps of your kitchen 🙂 Love these scallops – what a lovely meal!
I remember both of those recipes for ffwD. Great two-fer!
This looks delish Mary – I remember it being a goodie. And scallops are devine.
Hi Mary! I’m laughing at your list of bring-your-own kitchen supplies. Like Cher, I’m grimacing to think what I would bring. It would probably fill its own car. That looks like a delicious meal. Your friends will love you when you make the paris-brest. Very impressive looking, though not my top choice for a dessert. It’s not the dessert, it’s me. Hope that seaside view is making your winter special.
I love a woman with a plan, especially with a plan for a party…the brest is so delicious… great for bikers who won’t feel guilty about eating it. The scallops are perfect for your local… you are really going with the flow… oh, and don’t get me started about the strangeness of rental kitchens. I do the same thing clean and reorganize and wonder why? I was in a place that had 6 muffin pans.. that’s a lot of muffins. Hang in there.. I would have brought a food processor and my kitchen aid mixer…can’t live without either.
Oh, Diane, that’s the one thing I didn’t bring. My Kitchen-Aid Mixer. The hand-beater in this house sucks but am hoping that in my next house, the kitchen will be better equipped. It is a much nicer house. I move Feb. 16th. Already have it reserved for next winter!!! Ever the planner.
looking forward to the Paris Brest when you return. That is if I make the cut.
Your description of the kitchen inventory is a hoot. As you may recall when Pi was on the life raft one of the first things he did was do an inventory. Is there a relationship between life boats and rental property? In any case you are ready!
Your co-pilot, DonnaG
We are doing this together, my friend.
I think that I made that exact combo when I made the scallops at the time.
Love the inventory of things you take with you – I guess for me it depends on whether I’m flying or driving – mine might be a smaller list, but lots of the same things! But aren’t people impressed with what you can come up with!!! (oh, and I’m happy to see someone’s Penzey collection rival my own). Totally loved the whole thing, and can relate – well, maybe except the whole 13 weeks in a vacation rental on the ocean part. Have an amazing time!!
Your scallops look wonderful! Funny – I served mine with the Spiced Glazed Carrots too. I wish I had a rental by the ocean…
Hi Mary, I find myself in a rental kitchen this week as well. Mine, however, is in France and it is both larger and better equiped than my home kitchen!
We’re in Val Thorens, France and kicking ourselves for staying on this side of the pond this year for our skiing. The snow in Europe has been pitiful this year and I would love to be in Aspen right now. But my husband got severe altitude sickness last time we were skiing in Colorado (in Breckenridge) and ended up hooked up to an oxygen tank on the flight home. He wants to go back, but I’m more hesitant. We’ll see, maybe one day.
Yeah, Rose, Aspen just got 3′ to 4′ of new snow last week. My friends say that skiing is “epic”. However, altitude sickness is serious stuff and serious stuff trumps epic any day of the week. Sometimes altitude sickness is a one-shot occurrence and there are ways to help combat it (have I mentioned that I am a forest ranger and know these things?!?) so I hope you will return to Colorado at some point. But, good call on your part.
Many years ago our family would celebrate Thanksgiving with a family type reunion in various
rentals in the Pocono Mtns. Back then, they did not even have a decent store to buy things
that were needed. We lugged more food from New York, (Italian specialties) and the turkey
to make sure we had it all. It was a fun time, but for 5 days, what were we thinking? You
must try the Paris/Brest dessert, it is so delicious. Make a small one and enjoy it, make puffs
with the rest and freeze them for a later time.
I am not a big fan of seafood but I like scallops strange no? I had no idea that Dorie has a scallop recipe in the book. I checked out the meat and dessert recipes but it seems I completely blank it out hi hi! I totally agree with being organised in the kitchen when moving to a new house. Last year when I lived with my in-laws I shipped 3 boxes full of pots and pans and measuring cups because I knew she did not have them. So yeah for planning!!!
Wow! You must have driven with all that equipment. I know now how to pack for a culinary stay somewhere. You are amazing.
The scallops look great – sous chef will like it when I make those up. Is there a substitute for scallops? They don’t get along with my system frequently.
So glad you are enjoying Melanie and the class. Hope to see you in March!
Mary, I’m impressed that you brought so much with you…and very glad that the kitchen in my son’s beach house is so well equipped. No kitchen aid or food processor, but I seem to do fine without them. Every time we go down I buy a few things to leave behind. I wish I had a gas stove in my house…something I have always had except here in NJ. We don’t have gas lines where I live, however the beach house does!
Love this meal…I remember making those scallops…they were a big hit! And your carrots look yummy! Looks like life is good in Cambria…Fresh veggies, seafood and wine!! Sounds good to me! Enjoy your stay!
Glad you are going to give the Paris-Brest a try! I’ll be watching!
Looking forward to seeing your Paris Brest when you get back. I love how you bring all your own equipment with you- and Pensey’s spices are terrific! (I can’t do scallops- it’s a texture thing- but they look nice!)
Dear Mary, I loved reading all about the kitchen that you are cooking in while in Cambria. You actually hauled so many cooking necessities with you – respect. I do not think that I could find space in our car for cookbooks and spices when we travel. As far as the scallops are concerned, they look utterly delightful – unfortunately scallops (or “Jakob´s mussels” as we call them) are not widely available here and if you want some really good ones, you have to order them from the fish monger. So, I have not made that recipe from the book yet but looking at your plate, I know I should one day!
Hope you are having a wonderful time in Cambria!
Andrea
P.S.: There is one more guardian angel (different one this time) waiting for you – Freya chose it and we will make sure it will find the way to Aspen once you return there.