Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Scallops anyone?

That was me. The Costco scallops are very good. I buy them and eat on 'em until they're gone.

Sprinkle them with a little s&p, Old Bay, and then shake them in a bag of flour to just lightly coat them. Fry in hot oil witha little butter added until they are just warm through and brown.

Like shrimp, you've got to be careful not to overcook.

If I'm ever on Death Row, for my last meal I want a fried seafood platter from Chesapeake Landing in Talbot County, Maryland. Lump crabcake, shrimp, oysters, fish, and scallops. If oysters aren't in season you get more shrimp and scallops, or sometimes a softshell crab.

Ha! Spongebob is the man.

In the northeast coastal areas it is advisable not to eat more of the sea scallop than the abductor mussel. There is a president for this in the literature. I copied this for what it is worth:

Among bivalves, scallops are classified as species capable of protracted retention of PSP toxins, particularly in the digestive gland and mantle, which can remain toxic
year-round in natural populations (Bourne, 1965; Prakash et al., 1971; Ogata et al.,1982; Shumway et al., 1988). It was especially noteworthy that toxin concentration in all scallop tissues from the Gulf of Maine was higher when sampling was resumed in the spring, than the declining levels found during late fall ‘of the previous year, when sampling was terminated. For gonadal tissue the difference was particularly remarkable,
indicating the greater capacity for maturing gonads to sequester PSP toxin.

I have eaten the mantle [locally rims]from sea scallops and found them bitter tasting. Tried them once and never desired to eat then again. All before I learned it

Scallops are shucked on board the catch boat as they are caught. Scallops can be found on muddy and rocky bottom. I have dived for, shucked and eaten my share of sea scallops in my younger days and do not have any memory on grit ever being a nuisance.

You all need to know that fresh scallop meats harvested in the coastal waters are flaccid and faintly multi-colored fresh out of the shell. When a buyer gets them they will be soaked for some period of time in fresh water. The meats take in the fresh water plumping them up and this increases their weight something like 20%. They leave the dealer to market firm and white. A lot of the scallop flavor can be lost in the soaking process. As an aside, Maine shrimp are treated the same way before the meats are picked from the tail shell. Shucked oysters are placed in a commercial size kettle that has a perforated plate on its bottom that allows pressurized air to bubble up through cold fresh water. In the case with shucked oysters this is necessary to separate out the broken shell pieces. But again, good flavor is lost.

In my opinion the best scallop flavor is developed when scallops are "roasted" with butter in a high heat oven until the juices have evaporated, the butter has browned and the scallops are well caramelized on their edges. Oysters respond well to this method too.

When boiling lobsters, fresh whole shrimp and crabs there is a recipe I have favored that does well in retaining flavor. the boiling water has 1/2 cup table salt, two tablespoons real sugar, and a tablespoon of white vinegar in each 6 quarts. In 6qts water only cook 1 pound of shrimp for 28-30 seconds or until they start to float. A vegetable rinse basket works well for shrimp. Tie cotton string to it to have something to pull it up out of the water with. Dump the cooked shrimp into a large bowl or tray to let them to cool and stop cooking.

Lobsters do well boiled for 15 minutes [ size dependent] in this water-salt-sugar solution.

Fresh crabs are boiled for 20 minutes, 5-6 at a time but not above the water level. Have a sink standing by 1/2 full of cold water that has about the same salt content as the boiling water. When the crabs are done, immediately place them in the cold water and allow them to cool through. This shrinks the meat away from the shell and makes it easy to pick-suck out the meat. Store extra crabs, lobster, shrimp in an air tight container in the refrigerator for grazing on over the next few days.

Oh......all this seafood makes your favorite beer taste soooooooo good. :o)

samchap

Oysters also respond well to being broiled on the half shell with a dollop of backfin, crumbled bacon, and a little cheese. Might not be traditional, rugged, or manly, but they are so good.

I went to a buffet on Tilghman Island, MD that was serving those and ate about thirty of 'em.

Interesting. All the shots I posted of whole scallops being cooked and eaten were from Japan. I'm certain they were of the Asian variety, but from exactly where I'm unsure. I'm certain northern Japan (Hokkaido) produces large amounts of scallops, and I'd not be the least bit surprised if they were almost all farmed, which may explain why the Japanese serve scallops whole (shellfish are in controlled environments, rather than open ocean and subject to toxins therein, those regularly occurring and otherwise).

I ate the entire contents of two, just to try, and some parts were quite tasty, others downright bad. The pink stuff was pretty good, but the black gooey stuff in particular was not something I'll ever try again. Big surprise that the black stuff wasn't very good, right?

I have to disagree with you slightly on cooking method. The addition of any sugar in the cooking of bugs is something I've heard of, but fail to see the point of, and I won't ever do it. There's enough added sugar in so many things these days, I'll be damned if I'll ever add any to a simple boiled seafood meal. I choose to steam, rather than boil much of my seafood anyway--in natural salt water when I can-- and definitely with lobsters and softshell clams. Thanks for the additional insight though.

A couple buddies pictured. A lot of the ones we got that day were the teacup saucer size. You're right about the taste of fresh being different, and better. But hey, not everyone has the chance to eat fresh off the boat seafood...

They were served that way in Australia as well. I did not care for it.

You referring to scallops cooked whole or the lobsters with sugar thing? Come on man, you're retired now, and can afford the time to type an extra few words these days!

Scallops are known to produce pearls which are found in the filmy outer tissue. These might be mistaken for grit but are not found in the muscle.

If you boil any any muscle tissue there is a soluble fraction in the meat that seeps out into the water because of osmotic pressure. The salt is added to make the water a bit more saline than the saline content in the seafood being boiled. The same goes for the sugar. If you are boiling in seawater add only one tablespoon salt to it.

I do understand the variability in what individuals deem flavorful and delicious. Sometimes food taste experiences in early life lend to what an individual may think is delicious to them.

I posted pictures of scallop pearls I found while shucking a couple years back, actually. Agree about individual tastes and preferences. As far as the osmosis stuff, well, OK. Diffusion of a few lobster-based molecules crossing through a semi-permeable membrane, those moving from a greater to a lesser concentration? Well, as stated I think, I steam mine, generally. I like throwing my molecules a curve ball. You should see the bugs scratching their heads as they turn red, trying to figure the chemistry out and whatnot...



Cheers, samchap.

I heard some scallops come from shark meat. Is that true?

Boldly speaking generally for discerning and seafood-conscious folks in New England only, if a consumer can't tell the difference between a sea scallop and a supposed apple corer punched out plug of shark meat (of which three species are commercially viable as well as being edible [mako, porbeagle and thresher]), well...

The other thing is, any fish dealer caught (ha, ha) selling 'fake' seafood in these parts is gambling with financial ruin. Being that we have such a wealth of marine produce available, one would have to be in business suicide mode to ever try to pass off a counterfeit product.

But then, spiny dogfish are sold commercially and exported and sold as 'fish 'n' chips' fodder in the UK and elsewhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiny_dogfish

The reality is, particularly if you know someone who knows a thing or two about a thing or two, one can gorge oneself on ocean delicacies full-time for a week, easy, without even coming within rifle distance of breaking the bank. I dare you.