Saturday, March 26, 2011

Scallops w/ Caramel-Orange Sauce - French Friday's with Dorie

When I first started making these, I fretted about the scallops because I got them from the super-market and not the fish market. Our local market has the best dry scallops and I'll use them next time I make these because the sauce was great. The scallops I bought were pretty good, but not the greatest, and that may be why the juices ran and messed up the beautiful sauce? They said "dry" and they did brown nicely, but I'm not sure. I'll have to do a comparison.

So I started making the sauce, using orange juice from a carton, rather than squeezing my own because I wanted to know the juice was going to be good and it's hard to tell what you're going to get with fresh fruit sometimes. I've made caramel before, and know that using a white pan is the way to go. So I browned the sugar, added the wine and juice and really didn't like the smell. I noticed this from other recipes of Dorie's, so I waited it out and once it came together, it was wonderful!
Caramel Sauce
I made the sauce first, then got working on the carrots with spiced butter, also from "Around My French Table". Another case where the smell at the beginning didn't do much for me. No need to be nervous, these were wonderful too. Super easy, sweet and fruity, though maybe too sweet to go with the scallops. Next time I think I'll try asparagus and couscous as sides. As you can see from the plate, there isn't a starch. That's because I bought a nice wheat chibatta to go with it. That worked well because I could soak up all the caramel sauce with it!

Scallops & Carrots

5 comments:

Cher Rockwell said...

This sauce was definitely worth soaking up! Good observation on the early smell not matching up with the end result.
Glad these were a hit for you!

Betsy said...

The light colored pot really makes a different in knowing how that caramel is browning... Your scallops look tasty. I enjoyed learning to sear scallops, though I didn't love the sauce.

tricia s. said...

Your picture is amazing. Your scallops clearly turned out amazing. I was very happy with the results as well - and pretty surprised because I was not a scallop fan before. Dorie helps everything - I never would have tried these if not for FFWD !

laurcl said...

Thanks all! What is also surprising to me is how easy each recipe is. I haven't been through the whole book, by far, but all I've tried are very simple, if not all quick.

Anonymous said...

I really liked this sauce and will try it again with other proteins like shrimp and pork. I love sweet-sour-salty combinations.