We are finally back to blogging! What better way to get back in the kitchen than with a delicious pasta with scallops?? It’s been a long couple of months, between moving into our new home and undergoing a kitchen renovation, we’ve been absent from the blogging world. We finally have a fully functional kitchen and we are obsessed! We splurged on our dream kitchen range, the Miele 36 inch all-gas, and cannot be happier with it so far. We are beyond excited for all the new cooking adventures that we are going to have with it. The rest of the kitchen is pretty spectacular too, we love super durable Silestone countertops, our Faber vent hood, and open shelving!
For our first blog post, we wanted to share a new pasta recipe, because pasta is truly one of our favorites things to cook! We got the idea when we saw some gorgeous in-season artichokes and bay scallops on sale. Good artichokes are hard to find here in Texas, and are usually pretty expensive, so we jumped on them when we saw them. You can use canned artichoke hearts if you cannot get fresh in your area.
The idea for this pasta sauce came from what we had in our fridge. We had some beautiful cherry tomatoes, leftover Cypress Grove Purple Haze goat cheese, and fresh basil from our garden. Because the goat cheese is already so creamy, we were able to use whole milk, rather than heavy cream, to make the sauce.
Once the sauce was 90% ready, we moved onto searing the scallops. The key to searing scallops is to make sure you pat them very dry, add a sprinkle of sugar to allow them to caramelize, and make sure your pan is hot! We used small bay scallops, so they cooked in 1-2 minutes per side and came out with a nice golden brown crust.
We decided to place the scallops on top of the pasta for plating purposes, but you can add them directly into the sauce as well. To serve, we added parmesan, basil, and balsamic – we love adding these toppings to almost all of our pasta recipes!
Let us know how you like this delicious Spring inspired pasta dish!
Ingredients
Method
- Pre-heat oven to 300F
- Clean and slice leaf tips off of the artichokes. Place them into a steamer to cook for about 30 minutes. (Skip this step if using canned artichoke hearts). Once done, place into ice bath and peel leaves from heart. Set hearts aside.
- While the artichokes are cooking, place tomatoes onto a roasting pan and drizzle with 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil. Roast in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes, or until softened and slightly dehydrated. Set aside when done.
- Add 1 tablespoon of oil to a medium-sized pot. Add minced onion and cook on low heat until softened. Add garlic and calabrian peppers and continue to cook until translucent.
- Add in white wine and anchovy paste. Stir and allow to simmer for about 5 minutes until almost completely reduced.
- Add in goat cheese and vegetable broth and stir to combine. Continue to simmer for another 3-5 minutes. If you notice the sauce becoming too thick, then add the milk to reach desired consistency.
- Cut the whole artichoke hearts into quarters and add them into the pasta sauce along with the roasted tomatoes. Allow sauce to simmer on low heat while you finish prepping the scallops.
- Boil water for your pasta and cook according to package instructions and drain well. Reserve some pasta water to thin out the sauce if too thick.
- While your pasta is boiling, heat grapeseed oil in large skillet over high heat. Pat the scallops dry and season with salt and sugar (to allow caramelization).
- Sear scallops for about 1-2 minutes per side, until they have golden brown crust, and remove from heat.
- Add drained pasta to the sauce and stir, adding reserved pasta water, if needed, to thin the sauce.
- Plate the pasta and top with seared scallops, chopped basil, parmesan cheese, and a drizzle of balsamic glaze.