Happy Holidays intrepid readers! Here is hoping that all has been bountiful and well. Thanksgiving was a comfortingly low key affiar this year and we only wound up making some basic artichoke cream cheese dip. The eating around has been at it's recently common trickle, with one somewhat odd trip for tepanyaki and hitting up common haunts that I've previously covered.
On a somewhat related front, I've been collaborating with my friends at www.dshootist.com on some video projects for The Germ short film festival. We've thrown around some really interesting ideas so far and the inspirational topic is food. So you know I've got a few tactless plots festering in my brain. Once we get into production, I'll hopefully have the presence of mind to share some behind the scenes stills.
But on to the reason for the season. Eating! In this particular case, Mrs. EOF cast dinner responsibility on me so that she could finish working on her finals. Digging through the freezer for something interesting, I found a nice little package with some wee sea scallops. As I'm pondering them, I find myself wondering maybe a cream soup? Upon looking for bacon, all I can find is a chub of hot breakfast sausage and it all starts to gel. Milder shellfish, milder unsmoked pork...I've got some seriously questionable new potatoes...screw it! Let us boldly assume we can meld this into a chowder!
The stuff:
1 lb Small to med sea scallops
1.5 lbs New potatoes chopped (about a dozen)
3/4 lb Hot breakfast sausage
6 tablespoons Unsalted butter
4 tablespoons Flour
1 qt Chicken stock
2 cloves Garlic minced
1/2 teaspoon Black pepper
Begin by heating up your soup pot to start browning and crumbling the breakfast sausage. For the potatoes, if they're good you can just peel them, since mine were almost vodka, I used the par-boil method where you boil the potatoes for 3-5 minutes and then rub the skins off with a paper towel. Chop the potatoes and add to the sausage. Stir through the sausage and cook on medium heat for another 5 minutes if par cooked or until just before they become tender 10-20 mins from raw depending on your chop-size. At this point add in the butter and stir until fully melted and then add the flour, garlic and pepper and stir until incorporated, 1-2 minutes. Now add in the quart of chicken stock and again stir thoroughly and bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer for 5 minutes to allow thickening. Add your thawed sea scallops and simmer another 5-10 minutes or until the scallops are still soft but pull apart easily in your burned fingers.
When you serve this, be prepared. Prepared to fight off your family and/or friends, because once you taste this, you'll be reserving seconds and all subsequent numbers of refills for yourself! And don't expect them to capitulate easily. I'm still nursing some pretty bad scratches and a mild concussion from my last batch.
Happy Holicookerying!
Pook
