Sanja’s tagliatelle with scallops in American sauce
Everything is a bit odd here…
It’s also an odd name of the recipe, right? Especially when you know my name is not Sanja 🙂
components
- Pack of tagliatelle
- AMERICAN SAUCE:
- 300-500gr of leftovers of shrimp and lobster shells (you can use whatever you want from this)
- 15gr of butter+ 15 gr for scallops
- 15 gr of flour
- 15 gr of olive oil
- 50ml of dry white wine
- 1 soup cube (from vegetables, fish) dissolved in 500ml of water
- 1 carrot
- 1-2 shallots
- 1 onion (smaller)
- 1 spoons of tomato paste
- 1 tomato
- 1 garlic clove
- parsley, thyme, leek
- salt, pepper, ground paprika
- 4 scallops per person
- red hot pepper
- micro herbs
Instruction
- Clean all the vegetables, peel them and cut into larger pieces.
- Heat up olive oil, and roast the leftover shells of shrimps, lobster in it.
- Add green spices, parsley, leek, thyme.
- Add dry white wine and cook until the wine disappears, and the liquid reduces in half.
- Then, pour broth or water over and cook everything together for 30 minutes.
- Strain everything and squeeze the juices from the shells.
- Continue warming up the liquid. Mix the butter and flour separately and gradually add it to the liquid while stirring constantly. Cook everything together for another 10 minutes.
- Strain the sauce through gauze and add ground paprika, salt, and pepper to taste and the sauce is ready.
- For Sanja's tagliatelle you need just 7 minutes of cooking in salt and boiling water. After that, strain them and shower with cold water, and leave them aside. I often coat them with olive oil in this step, which makes them shine even more.
- SCALLOPS PREPARATION: Defrost scallops, then dry with a napkin. Salt them and heat up the butter in the pan.
- Put the scallops with the flat surface on a well-heated oil and roast on each side until it gets a golden colour. After that, take them off the stove.
- SERVING: Put a bit of the American sauce at the bottom of a plate, put Sanja's tagliatelle with cuttlefish ink over scallops and then additionally pour over a bit more sauce.
- Decorate with micro herbs and hot pepper.
Who is behind Sanja’s tagliatelle with scallops?
Tagliatelle is homemade by my friend Sanja. They are excellent, they are not sticky and don’t change the texture of sauces. It’s quite simple – unless you really don’t want to make your own tagliatelle, there is really no reason not to try and make Sanja’s tagliatelle.
And now… the scallops…I believe you already know what scallops are.
These are in fact shells, which for me have the most beautiful shell out of all of them, and their meat is something like eating chicken meat, but softer 🙂
In the end, all that’s left is to explain what the American sauce is…
I’ll just say… not matter the name, it’s the best, the tastiest, and the most luxurious sauce there is, and it’s made from the leftovers and pieces from seafood that would otherwise end up in a dumpster.
Do not miss out on making this sauce whenever you have the chance…It can be frozen and it’s equally good after defrosting.
How to make American sauce?
It’s very simple, but let’s start from the beginning.
The original American sauce is made from lobsters. Not from meat, but from leftovers, which means head as the most important part for all the juices, along with the body shell and the legs…I mean, you can also add meat, but then it brings the luxury on another level 🙂 and there are few of us who can actually afford it.
Now… here we will substitute the lobster with shrimp, that is, the shell. So, we need to buy shrimp (the cheapest ones with the shells), clean them, leave the meat for other gala occasions, and use the shell and the head for the sauce.
This sauce is ideal for tagliatelle with scallops…
Of course, if you don’t feel like making this sauce, and you already have all the leftovers, feel free to freeze them…and make it when you have the chance.
The next ingredient in the original version is fish broth, but if you don’t have it you can also use a fish cube for soup, or just water.
The rest of the ingredients are regular, and you can find them in the recipe at the end.
Tagliatelle with scallops
Let’s talk about cleaning the scallops…I like to explain everything, especially for those who would like to buy and try these famous shells for the first time.
You can buy scallops in a fish market. You can find them in a shell, completely closed like the ones that can be found in nature. Then, you can also find the ones completely cleaned without a shell, and those partially in a shell…meaning that there is only one lid. Frozen or fresh. The best are fresh. But if there are no fresh ones, the frozen ones are just as good for pasta.
For the completely closed option, there is a technique to open them which isn’t the simplest if you are inexperienced. This is why it’s best to ask at the fish market to open and clean them. They can be opened with a stronger knife, but generally, there is a special kind of knife for them. Besides a knife, you will also need some strength.
Just like with all seafood, they cannot have any unpleasant smell.
How to clean them?
Scallops consist of white and orange parts (coral). You should separate the coral from the meat and we can use it for the American sauce. If your shell has „an apron“, you should wash it from the sand well and put it in the sauce, too. You cannot throw anything away, remember that. K
Some parts are more edible than others, but you can use all of them. You can also use the apron once it’s clean, dry, and deep-fried.
They are the quickest to prepare
The meat part (the white part) is easily roasted…and you can eat it alive like carpaccio, and you can also make it sous vide.
The simplest way to do it is on butter in a well-heated pan for 2 minutes on each side, that is until it gets its golden colour. And that’s it.
The entire recipe is to cook Sanja’s tagliatelle for 5 to 7 minutes, roast the scallops for 5 to 7 minutes and make a sauce.
If you are making the sauce at the same time as making Sanja’s tagliatelle, you should take 1h to 1:30h for the sauce reduction.
