To Stretch a Tray of Scallops

You can still be a frugal cook, even when you splurge on something as expensive as scallops. Frugality is not the same as miserliness. It means not wasting a thing, and making the most of what you have.

A half-pound of scallops weighs barely 8 ounces and cost me $8.99. “Ouch!” You think, “That’s about $18 a pound!”
But wait: No bones, no fat. And you can stretch those scallops to four servings. My Chinese cookbook allows two ounces of meat per serving. Think Chinese, but eat brown rice. Put a lot of veggies with those scallops. Vegetables have protein, too. It just isn’t complete. You get more out of the vegetable proteins by putting a little meat with them, my Chinese daughter-in-law says. Brown rice, cooked, yields 7.4 ounces per cupful and the scallops at 2 ounces per serving give you 9.53 ounces, and the vegetables at least 4 grams protein, a surprising total near 21 grams of proteins per serving.

           Scallop Stir-fry
              4 servings
8 ounces very large scallops
6 slices ginger the size of a quarter, minced
4 large garlic cloves
1 head nappa cabbage
2 cups sugar peas in their pods
1 red bell pepper cut in strips about ¼ x 1 ½ inches
1 bunch green onions
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
4 teaspoons soy sauce

 Halve each scallop. Peel and slice the garlic and mince the ginger. Put them in a small bowl together. It does the garlic good to rest while you prepare the rest of the vegetables.

Cut the nappa in 1 ½ inch squares, putting the tender pale green leaves in one bowl and the white stem pieces in another. Check the pea pods for strings and remove any you find. Put the pea pods in another bowl or your 2-cup measuring. Cut up the bell pepper as described above. Wash, dry, and cut the green onions in 1 ½-inch lengths, putting the palest part in a small bowl or tea cup and the dark green part in another.

Arrange all these bowls of vegetables beside your cook stove. Get out two large skillets and their covers. Put half the olive oil in each skillet. Over medium high heat, bring the olive oil to shimmering. All the ingredients must be shared between the two skillets.

Fry the garlic and ginger for 3 to 5 minutes, until the garlic is pale golden. Shove to the far sides of the pans. Add the pea pods and the white part of the onions. Stir fry to heat the pea pods through. Add the bell pepper. Stir-fry a couple of minutes. Add the white part of the nappa. Stir-fry 3 minutes. Push aside. Adding more oil if necessary, briefly fry the scallop pieces. Let them become opaque, but not browned; too much cooking toughens them. Stir them into the vegetable mixture in the pans.  

At once, add the light green nappa squares and the dark green onion stems. Combine and add the broth and soy sauce. Cover the pans and cook 5 minutes. The scallops will be done, but not tough.

Serve over cooked brown rice. For a beverage, I chose pomegranate juice. You could drink water with a slice of lemon in it, or rosé wine, or Chinese beer. My Chinese friends and family members tell me not to drink tea until fifteen minutes after finishing eating. You just enjoy the pleasant flavors in your mouth and conversation for a quarter hour. Then comes tea. In China, dessert is not a separate course; everything comes to the table at the same time