As an exercise (albeit, a DELICIOUS exercise), purchase yourself some dry (not dried) sea (not river) scallops and sirloin steak tips. We're going to make a quick meal that lets you play around with the art of skillfully burning your food.
While going through this exercise, keep the following tips in mind:
- You may substitute other oils for this recipe, but ensure that you use a clear oil. Oils with a lot of flavor tend to have lower smoke points, and, subsequently, flash points. Steer clear of sesame and extra virgin olive oil (though light seems to be okay) for this exercise. As a reference, take a look at this page:
http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/50/Smoke-Points-of-Various-Fats - Caramelization requires a high heat with little liquid, so make sure to thaw your ingredients first. If frozen, I suggest that the scallops and beef could be thawed in the refrigerator for a day before cooking.
- Caramelization has many stages. If you want only a light brown on the side of your meat, feel free to stop the process there. If you prefer a darker color, cook it for longer. Both are acceptable. Play around with it and see what you (or the people eating your food) prefer.
- Use a gas burner. It will make your life way easier. If you don't have a gas burner, consider removing the pan entirely from heat and moving to a separate burner when we change the temperature of the burner at step . Electric burners are slower to lower their temperature, and will probably result in burned food if you're not careful.
Ingredients:
- 1/4 lbs. Dry Sea Scallops (Dry indicates not that the scallop has been dried, but rather that it leaks no excess moisture, which would make carmelization difficult)
- 1/4 lbs. Sirloin Steak Tips, cut into large bite-sized pieces
- Asparagus (or other vegetable, to be served on the side as a complement to the meal. Yes, you must eat your veggies) cooked to preference
- Black Pepper
- Paprika
- Kosher Salt
- Extra Light Olive Oil
- Mis en Place. Get everything ready. Beef should be chopped, scallops should have feet removed, asparagus needs to be washed and have its stem truncated.
- Turn the burner on high under the pan. I usually use a non-stick pan for this, just because it makes the process (and cleanup) alot easier.
- Allow the pan to heat for a bit, maybe 30 seconds, and add a small amount of oil. With proper tilting, the bottom of the pan should get a light coat of oil.
- Let this heat for another 30 seconds to a minute. The oil should be very hot at this point. Gently place the scallops flat-side-down on the flat of the pan, let them sit for 1 second, and then move them an inch. What this does is ensures that the scallop does not sear directly to the pan and gets a coating of oil. Do this to all the scallops. Each scallop should sizzle as you place it, indicating that the temperature is high enough to basically vaporize water. If the oil splatters a lot, you know you've used too much.
- Allow the scallops to become lightly brown on the side touching the pan. Its ok to check them intermittently, but as you do this exercise more and more, you'll start to know exactly when to flip them.
- Once the scallops brown, flip them over and reduce the heat to low. The scallops will probably be done in a matter of seconds if you like them rare, like me, otherwise give them a minute or two to cook fully. Remember to give them that little shuffle when you flip them, to avoid sticking to the pan. Sometimes I like to add a sprinkling of kosher salt and some white wine on this step. It gives the scallops some additional flavor and nicely deglazes the pan.
- When they are cooked to your satisfaction (fully cooked scallops usually adopt a nice opaque white color, rather than the translucent sheen they have when raw), turn off the heat and remove them from the pan. Let's move on to beef.
- Quickly clean and dry the pan and return it to heat. Once again, we're going to use a small amount of oil to coat the bottom of the pan.
- Once the oil has heated, this time we're going to add black pepper, paprika, and kosher salt in a technique similar to a tadka. These spices will flavor the oil and actually caramelize right to the beef.
- After the spices stop sizzling, or at least, reduce in their sizzly-ness, carefully place all of the beef on the pan with the largest side face-down. Remember to do the quick 1-inch shuffle to avoid getting a piece stuck to the pan.
- Once the beef is caramelized to your expectations, flip it and reduce the heat to medium or low, depending on how you'd like your meat cooked. Again, you may add liquid in this step if you so desire. I'd recommend a red-wine or small amount of broth. Beef tends to leak its own juices while cooking, as well, so try and keep this in mind.
- Feel free to cut open pieces of the beef if you're unsure how close they are to done. I, again, like my meat rare, but many of you may not.
- Once cooked to satisfaction. Serve with your vegetable of choice and enjoy!
