The Great American Slow Cooker Book (90 page)

Serve It Up!
Season cooked long-grain brown rice with toasted sesame oil, lime juice, and salt for a perky side dish.

1
Lay the lemon slices across the bottom of the slow cooker. Top with the butter, garlic, and thyme sprigs. Cover and cook on high for 2 hours, or until the lemon slices have softened considerably.

2
Add the scallops, toss well, and sprinkle with pepper and salt. Cover and continue cooking on high for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the scallops are firm and opaque.

TESTERS’ NOTES

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Here’s an easy supper from scallops—and economical, too, if you use frozen scallops you’ve thawed in the fridge for a day or two.

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Make sure you get every drop of the sauce. Even the softened lemon rings are lovely to eat with the scallops.

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We prefer a heavy dose of pepper in buttery sauces. You might want to cut back if you don’t want your dinner to sting.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
In North America, we eat only the abductor muscle of scallops—that is, the muscle that opens and closes the shell, not the bright roe or other, smaller bits. At the seafood counter, look for dry-packed scallops, those shucked and shipped on ice (or just frozen), each with a slightly pink hue, rather than wet-packed, which have been doped with a whitening agent and preservatives (which can also give the meat a soapy flavor). Sea scallops are quite large, sometimes 2 or 3 ounces each; bay scallops, by contrast, are small, perhaps several to the ounce.

ALL-AMERICAN KNOW-HOW
Scallops are done fast—and can also be overcooked in a matter of minutes. You’ll need to watch the slow cooker closely, even more so than you do with shrimp. The scallops should be firm to the touch but not cracked, a little resistant but not “springy.” Cut one open to see if it is cooked through. We prefer ours a bit translucent at the center, about 20 minutes for medium sea scallops. If you like yours more done, cook them for 10 minutes longer.

1
Mix the broth, celery, leeks, vermouth, butter, lemon zest, salt, pepper, and tarragon sprigs in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for 2 hours, or until the vegetables have begun to get tender.

2
Add the scallops. Cover and continue cooking on high for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the scallops are firm and opaque.

3
Use tongs or a slotted spoon to remove the scallops from the slow cooker; set them on a large platter and tent with aluminum foil to keep warm.

4
Strain the sauce in the slow cooker through a fine-mesh sieve and into a saucepan. Stir in the cream. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally. Boil to reduce until half its original volume, 2 to 5 minutes. Ladle the sauce over the scallops to serve.

TESTERS’ NOTES

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In this simplified version of coquilles St. Jacques, you lose all the vegetables, but most of their flavor has dissolved into the sauce.

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Dry vermouth’s herbal flavors will offer more punch here, rather than the sugary finish of white wine.

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If you don’t have a fine-mesh sieve, line a colander with a coffee filter or cheesecloth. (The point is to catch even the small bits like the lemon zest.)

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Substitute peeled and deveined shrimp at will. Or even thawed frozen lobster tails, which will need 30 to 40 minutes in the slow cooker.

Serve It Up!
For an
Herbed Salad
to stand up to this cream sauce: Mix chopped parsley leaves and stemmed thyme leaves with bagged salad greens, then dress it all with a lemon vinaigrette made from two parts oil to one part lemon juice, seasoned with salt and pepper.

1
Stir the broth, tomatoes, shallots, garlic, oregano, cinnamon, saffron, and bay leaf in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for 3 hours, or until simmering and fragrant.

2
Remove the bay leaf. Stir in the scallops and shrimp. Cover and continue cooking on high for 20 minutes.

3
Stir in the couscous. Unplug the cooker and set aside, covered, for 10 minutes, or until almost all of the liquid has been absorbed.

TESTERS’ NOTES

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Once again, the absence of good fish stock hampers a perfect dish. Vegetable broth does good service, but fish stock would be better if you can lay your hands on it.

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Quick-cooked couscous will soften and absorb most of the water as it sits. Unfortunately, it can dry the dish out if you leave it for more than the stated time, so be prepared to sit down at the table right away.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Couscous is a North African and Middle Eastern staple, a pasta consisting of tiny balls of semolina wheat. Although traditional couscous is steamed for hours to get it tender, most North American supermarkets stock a parboiled dried product that is a pretty good stand-in. You can also find whole-grain quick-cooking couscous.

1
Mix the coconut milk, lime juice, ginger, lime zest, garlic, and red pepper flakes in the slow cooker; stir in the carrots and scallions. Cover and cook on high for 2½ hours, or until bubbling and fragrant.

2
Stir in the scallops and shrimp. Cover and continue cooking on high for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the shrimp are pink and firm. Stir in the basil before serving.

TESTERS’ NOTES

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The basil is added after the shellfish has cooked so that it doesn’t overpower the dish by leaching too many oils into the sauce.

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There’s no salt in many of these shellfish dishes because shrimp, scallops, clams, and oysters leach so much briny water into the sauce as they cook.

Serve It Up!
Serve this stew over cooked and drained rice noodles, cellophane noodles, or mung bean noodles.