Scallops with Fresh Pea Sauce

The hardest thing about this meal was the shopping. I had to find fresh sugar snap peas and giant sea scallops in February. I decided my best bet for finding all of this was Whole Foods so I stopped there on my way home from work. Yes Tarragon, but no snap peas. Fortunately there was a nice young guy working the fruit and vegetable area and he went in the "back" to look. He came out with a triumphant look on his face carrying a box of snap peas that were remarkably fresh looking! Then it was over to the sea food counter where... NO SCALLOPS. Uh oh. Now what was I going to do? I couldn't possibly tell Mr. Triumphant that I had changed my mind but what the heck else was I going to do with that many snap peas. So, I stood there in the middle of Whole Foods and made a call to Sendiks (our local grocery store). Of course I had to call Information first so I tried to keep my voice low as I asked for the number for Sendiks. The lady on the phone couldn't hear me so I ended up saying quite loudly "SENDIKS - S-E-N-D-I-K-S." I'm sure the Whole Foods team really appreciated that little bit of advertising.

Anyway, Sendiks had plenty of scallops so all was well in the end.

NOTE FOR GUYS: This recipe calls for putting the peas, olive oil and tarragon into a food processor. FYI - that giant black thing on your counter that looks like it could double as a cement mixer is not a food processor. That is a "mixer." When Em saw me starting to dump the ingredients into the cement mixer she said, on no - you want the "food processor" sort of like Bill Cosby saying "COME ON OUT ... FAT ALBERT!"

So she brought out Fat Albert and in went the peas et al to be processed into a sauce that tasted a little of licorice which came from the tarragon. The last step in the process before you put the sauce on the plates is to heat it up and then at the last minute add lemon juice. I guess the lemon juice cuts the licorice flavor because we really did not taste it much in the final product. One hint is to make sure the sauce is nice and warm before you put it on the plates. It spreads out and will get cold pretty fast if you don't. So, after Fat Albert is done pulverizing it, bring the sauce to a very light simmer!

The meal was another hit. We decided that it would have been even better had the peas been served a bit warmer. The recipe says it makes enough for 4 but we were glad there were only 3 of us. We also thought it might have been better with some bread sticks or toast. It also feels like a summer meal. All in all though it was wonderful.

Tomorrow? Not sure yet. Maybe the Crispy Asian Duck Breasts and Soft Polenta or Garlic and Mint Roasted Chicken. The chicken will require that I figure out how to work the rotisserie on the grill which I have not used yet.

Mark