Scallops, originally uploaded by jdcb42.

When shopping the other day we noticed large Hokkaido scallops for about $2.50 for a pack of 10. Luckily, these ones hadn't had their yummy orange roe removed so I bought some.

This is what I did with them when I was hungry after I woke up from my 5 hour nap at 2 am after a work and then Christmas shopping in crowded Nagoya (Monday was a public holiday).

Tasty Autumn Scallops

In a large non-stick frying pan

Fry 2 rashers of bacon until crispy
chop into largish pieces and set aside.
Don't clean the pan!

Dip 8-10 med-large scallops in a salt and pepper mix (70% course ground pepper if possible), mainly just coat 1 side of the scallops

Add about 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil to the bacon grease in the pan, get it pretty hot and then fry the scallops salt and peppered side down. while they are cooking, move them to one side of the pan and plonk about 2 tablespoons of butter into the space on the other side of the pan. Fry one bunch of washed enoki (white thin Japanese straw mushrooms) with roots removed (or whatever long thin edible fungus you can find). Add about a cup of fresh spinach leaves and gently lift/stir everything together, being careful not to damage the scallops. add about 1/4 cup of lemon juice and a teaspoon of crushed garlic. finally, if you want a bit of spice, add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of dried green chillie flakes (red would be fine too). I used some mum picked up for me from Herbies If the mixture is losing moisture add another splash of lemon juice and a bit more butter.

I used bottled lemon juice and garlic from a tube. Fresh would be better I'm sure.

Also, a bit of lime juice in the mix would've been good too, but limes are $3 a pop here
at the moment.

Serve on English muffins (that's what I did). Would also go nicely with thin chinese noodles or rice.

I drank Dubbonet and ginger ale with this which was a good match. A dry white wine such as a Marlborough (NZ) Savignon Blanc or TK (Tim Knappstein) Savignon Blanc (Adelaide Hills) would also have gone well.

Now, time to sleep again...