Baked Scallops

This is an easy yet impressive dish I whipped up for a weekend away over the summer break, It’s baked scallops with garlic butter, pangrattato and parsley!

Serves- 4
Ingredients- 9
Cooking Time- 20 minutes
Skill level- Easy

Ingredients

• 1 dozen scallops on the half shell, bought from Prahran Seafoods

• 125g of unsalted butter, room temperature and softened. I bought @pepesayabutter from Cleo’s Deli
• 3 sprigs of parsley, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tsp of salt

• 1 slice of stale bread, blitzed in a food processor
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 pinch of salt

• 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon of @chillioiloneverything, optional
• 1 sprig of parsley

Method

1. Make your compound butter (a fancy term for butter that has been flavoured by mixing in ingredients whilst soft) in advance first by adding 3 sprigs of parsley, 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic 2 tsp of salt and 125g of butter and mix to combine.
2. Pull out a sheet of cling wrap and place the butter mixture onto it in a log like shape. Take the ends of the cling wrap and roll over the butter log into a bon bon shape, twisting the ends until you get a thin sausage like shape. The diameter should be the size of a 20c coin.
3. Place the butter into the fridge to solidify for 20 minutes and pull out of the fridge before you want to bake the scallops.
4. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
5. Place a dozen scallops onto a large baking tray. Cut 2cm round dish from your butter and place each one on top of each scallop.
6. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius, or until scallops are fully cooked and butter is melted and golden.
7. Meanwhile make your pangrattato by heating 2 Tbsp of olive in a pan and then frying the breadcrumbs until golden. Season with some salt. Remove and set aside.
8. Remove the scallops from the oven and scatter over the pangrattato, a leaf of parsley, an optipnal drizzle of chilli oil and a squeeze of lemon, just before serving.
9. If you have any butter leftover, use it up by making garlic bread.

If you're looking for the perfect wine pairing, I recommend a Chardonnay, and one of my favourites is the Oakridge LVS Hazeldene Chardonnay. This pairs perfectly with buttery grilled seafood, especially scallops!