Bottega - Michael Chiarello [60]
To properly brown, the scallops need some room in the sauté pan. If cooking all the scallops at once, use a 14-inch pan. If you don’t have one this large, cook the scallops in batches. Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, add the olive oil, and heat until it shimmers. Season the scallops with salt and pepper on both sides and sauté for 2 minutes, or until nicely browned on the bottom. Add the butter to the pan, turn the scallops over, and add the ½ tablespoon parsley. Cook for 1 minute more. Tilt the pan and give each scallop a little basting of butter. Remove from the heat.
Place 3 scallops on each of 6 warmed plates. Spoon a little of the brown butter from the pan over each serving. Add a little cauliflower on top of each scallop with a serving of passatina (seared-side up, if you’ve seared it; see Chef’s Notes, below) on one side of the plate. Drizzle the late-harvest olive oil lightly over each scallop.
CHEF’S NOTES: To dress this up, sear the passatina lightly on one side when you reheat it. In a large sauté pan, heat a little olive oil over medium-high heat and sear the passatina in 1/2-cup amounts, then gently transfer each seared helping to a warmed plate, seared-side up.
I always buy a sacrificial scallop or two. You get to take it out and taste it during searing to be sure that all the other scallops are perfect.
Chapter 7
Meats and Poultry
Carne E Pollame
When buying meats and poultry, a restaurateur faces an honest dilemma: buy the very best tasting beef, goat, chicken, and lamb that’s available locally, or buy the best-tasting period? In a perfect world, the best lamb, for example, would be sustainably ranched just down the road. I’d send someone over to pick it up fresh every day. In fact, the guy who’s raised the best lamb I’ve tasted was just down the road—until he picked up and moved with all his lambs to Colorado. It took me nine years of searching to find lamb with that same flavor closer to home. (The lamb I served at home during those nine years was still good—just not quite the euphoria-inducing lamb that this guy raises.)
So what is my responsibility to my customers? I’m responsible for buying from farmers and ranchers who practice sustainable methods. I’m responsible for buying locally when possible. But the bottom line is, my customers pay me to put the best-tasting food on their plate that I can.
How do I find a way to get lambs just as good as those Colorado lambs? I first widen my circle, checking out local producers that I may not have bought from before. I then put all my powers of persuasion into trying to convince the Colorado rancher into having part of his business here in the wine country. (He’s considering this, but it hasn’t happened yet.)
How do you buy meats and poultry that taste as good as what we serve at Bottega? That’s a tough one. Keep in mind that I’ve sought out great ranchers for more than twenty years, and I have strong relationships with the people who raise our beef, pork, lamb, and chicken. That’s the one word of advice I have for you: relationships. Find a good butcher and talk to him or her every week. Go to farmers’ markets and seek out folks who sustainably raise grass-fed meats and poultry. Another good place to start is Heritage Foods (see Resources). You can widen your own circle and improve the flavor of your food while doing the planet a good turn.
Grilled Fennel-Spiced Lamb Chops with Roasted-Cherry Vinaigrette
Goat’s Milk–Braised Lamb Shanks with Carrot, Onion, and Eggplant Caponata
Arrosto of Duroc Pork with Roasted Heirloom Apples
Crispy Pork Shanks