Cycle 12 – Cycle 285
17 (Sun) October 2021
Butter Garlic Scallops
3.0
by me
at home
-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-
with the Family
Th meal felt Swedish by virtue of IKEA-sourced mashed potatoes and green beans (green beans are generally unavailable in Korea), even if the main dish was vaguely French – pan-seared, basted with garlic-infused butter (although surely Swedes make scallops like this as well?).
The problem with making so many scallops – these 30 scallops were hardly enough to satisfy the boys’ demand – is that the remaining bits of garlic, residual butter, and scallop fond in the skillet from the initial batch of 10 was already scorched by the start of the second batch. But cooking the scallops on lower heat wouldn’t achieve the same browning. Cleaning the skillet in between batches would take too much time. So I will need additional pans, cooking separate batches simultaneously.
(See also KSCX)
(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)
Yes, I guess this is a popular way of cooking it here too.
I have never made it myself though. Sadly, scallops (and most of other seafood) is either not available on the east coast or not caught commercially (due to the Baltic sea being pretty dirty/poisoned and/or overfished). Apparently scallops are found on the west coast though, so they would probably have a “traditional Swedish way” of preparing them…
2 surprising points in your comment, which suggests that: 1) food distribution is somewhat limited in sweden, which i would’ve assumed to be extremely efficient in things like logistics; 2) regional differences in cuisine are relatively unknown to each other (you’ve noted this before). in korea, i believe most things available in busan are available in seoul, and known, other than maybe very specific/rare things.
I think I phrased myself somewhat poorly. Of course you can get it in stores here on the east coast. You can get seafood from abroad too (especially France) in store too. I was talking about the TRADITIONAL way of preparing scallops, which would then be something regional (like in there wouldn’t be any traditional Korean dishes consisting of ingredients that weren’t originally available there)
And about regional differences in cuisine, It could just be my own ignorance. Would the average Seoul citizen be able to list all traditional dishes and ways of preparing them in e.g Daejon and Gwanju?
Of course there are regional specialties that aren’t well known across the country, but i’d imagine that because korea is a smaller peninsular country with a traditionally homogenous culture, anything worth knowing has had sufficient opportunity to be shared.