Scallops Baked with Butter and Endives. You must dip the bread into that butter!
Every time Mr. English and I are in Paris, we never miss an opportunity to eat at Le Comptoir, our favorite restaurant, just down the street from where we used to live when I was in cooking school. It’s become a lot more popular than it was back then, but the food remains, in my opinion, the best in Paris. Their scallops with endives is one of the best dishes on a menu packed with best dishes.
The dish is unpretentious, but unexpected: five giant sea scallops from Brittany, still on their enormous half shells, tucked under a blanket of soft, roasted endives, anointed with bubbling sweet butter. The sweetness of the scallops and the butter is gently counterbalanced by the bitterness of the soft endives. Breathtaking! And it only takes three ingredients and about 20 minutes. Paris, je t’aime!
I used red endive for that charred garnet color…
Excerpted from my weekly column French in a Flash on Serious Eats. Bon app!
INGREDIENTS
- 8 to 9 ounces sea scallops
- 1 endive
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- Salt and pepper
PROCEDURE
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line two gratin dishes with 8 endive leaves each. Top with 1/2 tablespoon butter each. Place the gratin dishes on a baking sheet and roast for 10 minutes. Top with scallops, season with salt and pepper, and turn the scallops in the butter now melted in the bottom of each dish. Bake about 8 minutes, until the scallops are cooked. Served with good hearty bread.print this recipe
I just found and signed up for your newsletter this week… I am so thrilled to find recipes for two!! Paring down recipes for 6-8 just doesn’t translate well sometimes… Found a wonderful cookbook by accident called “Cooking for Two” Perfect Meals for Pairs by Jessica Strand…. wonderful photos (I’m visual) and we’ve already made the front cover recipe which is sea scallops on a bed of fresh pea puree… wonderful… will definitely try your scallop recipe as well as the putanesca (sp?) shrimp and half pouisson on a bed of white beans … can’t wait…
Thanks so much for the tip on the cookbook! I definitely want to find it. And I’m so glad you’re another cooker for two. It’s just a different way of cooking, right?
Oh my goodness, yes! When we had teenagers and their friends running around the house, no need for leftovers…. just notes on dishes in the refrig of what they couldn’t eat! Now it’s two of us (we’re in Scottsdale, kids in CA and I’m reminded at least monthly it’s usually the kids that leave home) But cutting recipes down isn’t as easy and as it would sound… how many times have you cut the recipe down only to lose the “oomph” or end up with one extra serving (“Honey, are you sure you don’t want this?) We love cooking together and soups are a real passion for us – sometimes coq au vin, souffle, quiche, but the souffle can be easily made for two and the quiche is a two-nighter with a butter lettuce salad. .. we love to create and Saturday night is our seafood night (seafood in the desert is a challenge) and Sunday is
something special as well… so I did my “cheat” the other night… an already roasted chicken, veggies roasted in the oven tossed in olive oil and herbs, then the chicken on top hacked in half, rubbed with herbs…. baked till crisp… two nights with something in between… Oh, and the afternoon nibbles of veggies… We are in Paris a couple times a year (notice how that rolls off my tongue) but have also noticed that we love French food
mostly (L’Esplanade for special) we do gravitate toward Italian and bistros… but that’s
us… we love casual, fresh, well-prepared food… love your site and can’t wait to try the shrimp next week… I love past too, but you are right, not every time and besides, if you have leftover baguette, a little camenbert, sweet mustard and broil…
Take care, and hope all is well…
How often do you do a new blog… been there for two weeks and waiting..
This recipe looks so simple for how beautiful the scallops turn out! Very excited to give it a try. I’m all about simple and tasty.
简单而美味！22
I just made this for supper. A smashing hit with everyone, including my one-year-old. Absolutely the most divine 20-minute-to-table meal ever.
Thanks!