Sautéed scallops two ways; with nori and egg yolk 帆立貝の黄金焼き、海苔焼き

Hokkaido is famous for scallops among other sea food and I am partial to it but, come to think of it, I have not cooked scallops that often. So, I decided to make this dish one weekend.

I thought I would make a standard scallop dish called a "Golden grilled" scallop. This dish uses only an egg yolk which leaves the egg white behind. So I also made "nori coated scallop" or "Seashore grill" 磯辺焼き using the egg white.

I got medium sized "dry" sea scallops. In an ideal situation, you would like to get fresh ones with roes (liver) and membrane ("himo" 紐 in Japanese) attached but the ones I got were just the muscle. I removed the hard small bundle of muscle from the main muscle. I washed and patted dry. I salted the scallops but did not use any marinade this time.

I separated a pasteurized egg into the yolk and white. I mixed a small amount of mirin (less than 1 tsp) and salt into the egg yolk.

I tore the nori into small pieces. I dipped half of the scallops into the egg white and then rolled them in the nori to coat. The remaining scallops and the nori coated scallops were then sautéed in melted butter on medium high heat until both side were nicely brown turing once for 1 minutes or so depending on the thickness of the scallops. (Do not over cook). I took out the ones I was using for golden scallops before they were completely cooked. I left the nori coated ones for another 30 seconds to complete cooking.

For the golden scallops, I placed the sautéed scallops on a metal tray in a toaster oven on grill mode. I brushed the egg yolk mixture over the grilling scallops several times until a golden crust formed (2-3 additional minutes).

In the same sauté pan I used to cook the scallops, I added green asparagus (skin peeled and the bottom portion cut into several pieces on a slant) and snow peas. I cooked them for a few minutes in the remaining melted and browned butter seasoned with salt and pepper.

I placed scallop shells on the plate covered with a layer of Kosher salt to make the shells stable. I garnished the golden scallops with the green part of a scallion cut in a decorative shape and served with a side of asparagus. For the nori-coated scallops, I added a garnish of snow peas.

This is a perfect drinking snack. Both recipes have some variations. For golden scallops, you could add miso and sugar to the egg yolk. For Isobe scallops, you could marinade the scallops in a mixture of mirin and soy sauce before grilling or sautéing and instead of small pieces of nori, you could use a larger rectangle of nori to wrap the cooked scallops.