How To Make Perfectly Seared Scallops With Lemon Butter Garlic Sauce

Ingredients
• 1 lb of scallops
• 2 tbsp of olive oil or avocado oil
• 3 tbsp of unsalted butter
• 4 cloves of minced garlic
• 2 – 3 tbsp spoons of lemon juice
• Zest of 1 full lemon
• 2 tbsp of chopped fresh italian parsley or chives

Steps
• If using frozen scallops, thaw them in advance and remove any side muscles that may be present. Thoroughly pat dry your scallops with kitchen paper and if possible, air dry it in the refrigerator for a few hours.
• Gently salt your scallops right before you cook them. Avoid adding your salt too early as it will draw out excess moisture from your scallops.
• Heat your pan over a medium-high heat and add some neutral cooking oil. When the oil is just about to smoke, add your scallops in a clockwise manner and leave your scallops to cook untouched for 2 to 3 minutes so that they can form a golden crust.
• Add your butter and flip your scallops in the same order as you have placed them in the pan. and Cook your scallops for another 1 to 2 minutes and continuously baste them to allow the butter to infuse into your scallops and help with the browning process. Remove the scallops from the pan once done, it should still be firm to the touch, slightly opaque in the center without being overly rubbery.
• Add your garlic and allow to fry gently about 30 seconds. Next add your lemon juice and lemon zest and cook for another minute. Turn off the heat and add a bit more butter and parsley and mix well. Return the scallops to the pan and coat it with the sauces to reheat the scallops gently.

=============================
All Products and Gear Used in this video
=============================
Sony FX3 (Main Camera): https://amzn.to/4jQugJR
Sony ZV-E1 (Vlogging Camera) : https://amzn.to/42wiIG5
Sony ECM-B1M (Main Microphone): https://amzn.to/4cWDHWe
Hollyland Lark M2 (Lav Microphone) : https://amzn.to/3S6C4vd
Music (Epidemic Sounds) – Start your free trial here: https://share.epidemicsound.com/dfmlf1
===========================
Connect with me!
=============================
YouTube: @tedteocookingshow
IG: ➡ / @ted.teo
Tik Tok: ➡ / @tedteocookingshow

This video is NOT sponsored. Some product links are affiliate links which means if you buy something, the channel will receive a small commission. Thank you for your support!

This dish is a crowd-pleaser and I’m sure everybody will be fighting for [Music] seconds. Cooking scallops at home can be a real treat and it’s one of my favorite seafoods to have. So, for today’s video, we’re going to learn how to make scallops with a beautiful lemon garlic butter sauce right in our homes. This is a beautiful recipe to make at home and it’s very easy to make. The butter will give a richness to the dish and the lemon and parsley will help to wake our palette up as well. Tell me that doesn’t sound exciting. Okay, so the trick to get a really nice brown crust on our scallops is to make sure that they’re really dry before we start cooking them. So, how we’re going to do this is we’re going to have a tray full of kitchen paper and we’re going to dry our scallops on them. So, space your scallops apart and pat them dry as best as you can. You can also flip the scallops and move it around to the drier parts of the kitchen paper and then repeat the step. Remember, the trick is the drier the scallops, the better the crust. Right now that this step is done, there’s a huge difference in the surface moisture of the scallops. We can allow this to air dry for just a little bit as we prepare the rest of our ingredients, and by then we’ll be ready to cook. So, here we have some fresh parsley. Just give it a nice rough chop because we’re going to add it to the scallops at the end of the cooking process. It’ll help to add a nice fresh note to the sauce itself. I always try to use fresh herbs if I can. Dried herbs can be convenient, but the taste is just not the same. Okay, so now our parsley is very nicely minced and it should look like that. Next, we want to prepare about three cloves of minced garlic. Now, the funny thing about filming and editing videos is that I feel like I’m actually mincing garlic in every video that I’m making. And I thought to myself, maybe it’s because there are very few dishes that won’t be improved by a little bit of garlic. And when I say a little, I actually mean a lot. Now, get the zest out of one lemon and slice it in half. We will need the juice of about half a lemon for this dish. Okay, now that we are ready to cook, we’re going to salt our scallops. So, season the scallops generously on all sides. The reason why we’re adding salt only right before we cook the scallops is because we don’t want to allow the salt to draw too much excess moisture from the scallops. This will affect the texture of the scallops and turn it rubbery. Get your fingers in there and mop up all the excess salt on the sides of the scallops as well. Now, because we have to work really quickly, make sure you have your butter on hand because the moment we flip the scallops after about 2 minutes, we’re going to start basting it. And it’s going to take another minute or so before it’s done. We don’t want to overcook the scallops. Okay, now it’s time to cook the scallops. Just heat up a pan and once it’s warm, we’re going to add about 2 tbsp of olive oil. Just before the oil starts to smoke, add in your scallops. The common technique is to place them in a clockwise manner and to flip them in the same order later on to ensure even cooking time. Once you’ve placed the scallops in the pan, leave them be and allow them to cook untouched for 2 minutes. This is a very important step to help you ensure you can get that crust. Next, flip the scallops and add some butter into the pan. We’re only going to cook the scallops for another minute or so, so start basting the scallops in the butter immediately. Once done, take this off the heat. We want to make sure we don’t overcook the scallops. As you can see, the scallops have developed a beautiful brown crust, and that’s because we allowed it to cook untouched in the pan. Now, we haven’t even added the sauce, and it really smells so good. I’m excited for this. Now, let’s make our sauce by heating the pan over medium low heat and adding our garlic. Now, let’s scrape off all the flavor and fond from the bottom of the pan. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon. [Music] Now, let’s turn off the heat and add our lemon zest, parsley, and we’ll finish it with 1 to 2 tablespoons of butter. What we want is a nice rich and emulsified sauce like this. Now that we made the sauce, let’s give it a taste. M. It’s rich. It’s buttery. It’s fresh from the lemon and the parsley as well. It has so many flavors going on, and it’s going to be a great accompliment to the scallops. Now, let’s add the scallops back into the pan, and we’re going to coat the scallops in the sauce. [Music] Now, when cooking our scallops, we want to make sure that we don’t overcook them. When we press the scallops, there should be a nice give. It should not be too hard and rubbery. And when we cut into the center, it should be a little bit opaque as well. Let’s give it a shot. As you can see, the scallops are cooked perfectly in the center. Let’s see what this tastes like. I’m going to get a bit more [Applause] sauce. The lemon and the garlic and the parsley, they all go so well together. And it’s not too rich despite the amount of butter we added because the lemon juice and the zest really cuts through the richness of the sauce in a good way. It’s very balanced. And the parsley adds a little bit of a freshness that is always very refreshing to the palette. We were very generous with the garlic and I do not regret it. And of course, if you have some pasta boiled, you can always toss this in. The sauce is already there. The scallops can be your protein source, so it’s going to be a very good dish as well. Give this recipe a shot. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.