Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [165]
Appearance is an important part of the scallop’s attraction. It has become so companionable a part of our European civilization. One looks up at an eighteenth-century doorway and sees the shell porch or fanlight; sees a child baptized with water from a shell scoop, takes tea from a caddy with a silver scallop shell caddy spoon; the beauty of the shape is never exhausted. It may surprise one in opening the doors of an old corner cupboard; it brings delight, it is never taken for granted. It belongs to great painting. Aphrodite floating in on a scallop shell, flecks of real gold in her hair. It belongs to the poor, who went on pilgrimages to Spain to the church of St James at Compostela wearing the coquille St Jacques on their broad-brimmed hats. In our cave village in France, a room in one house in the cliff has an alcove with a scallop shell carved into the rock as ceiling. Nothing grand. It is said that the room was a chapel for the pilgrims who crossed the Loir to worship at the church of St Jacques on the other side of the river, as they journeyed to Spain.
And I suppose that with the deep-freezing of scallop meat in packages, we shall eventually lose even the shell and have to look at petrol pumps to remind ourselves.
HOW TO CHOOSE AND PREPARE SCALLOPS
Most fishmongers sell scallops all prepared and shining, a few on the shell to set them off, the rest nicely grouped around. If they are a good size, you may get away with two large scallops per person for some dishes, but three or four is a more kindly number. With the tiny princesses, queens and bay scallops, a dozen is a reasonable helping: gauge the size with your eye, 4 or perhaps 5 are the equivalent to the normal size. Reflect, too, that scallops are a particularly fine shellfish: nobody expects to gulp them down in mindless quantities.
Sometimes you may have the chance of buying scallops as they leave the sea. They will look far less attractive, gritty, dirty, greyish, but buy them all the same. Ask the fishmonger to open the shells for you, if they are mainly closed. Before you clean this natural-looking creature, take a good look. Round the edge, there is this grey transparent frill edged with half a hundred pearly-looking eyes, a beautiful sight. Once you remove this and the gills, rinsing the whole thing briefly, you are down to the edible part which emerges from its veil of a mantle shining and clean, a plump white disc – the adductor muscle – and the dazzling pointed coral roe. Separate the two gently, cut off any black bit attached to the coral and peel away the little hard knobbly bit attached to one side of the disc.
Keep the deep shells at least and clean them as suggested above. They can serve as little dishes for cooked scallops, or as moulds for baking pastry shells. There is a restaurant dish in which one or two scallops are put into one deep shell with aromatics: a rim of puff pastry is pressed round the edge, then on goes the flat upper shell. The whole thing is baked in a very hot oven, so that the scallops cook in their own steam, and the hinge of puff pastry rises to accommodate the steam. At table, you crack open your scallop shells, as if you expected to see Aphrodite pushing up the shell like a Tanagra figure.
Scallops can be cooked in so many ways. Try them instead of squid in the Borshch recipe on p. 408. Rich sauces have been devised for them, and do have the benefit of extending their wonderful flavour; as an occasional treat, they should not be despised.
SCALLOPS AU NATUREL
As with all fish and shellfish, rinse scallops as briefly as possible. For eating without further cooking, use only the white part. The coral roe is too soft and creamy, and should be kept for sauces and soups when it will be lightly