Steve Almond
So I've slacked - not surprising, but I haven't given up completely. I still take pictures as I'm cooking, I just haven't done anything with 'em yet. I will, though. Promise.
Tonight, being Halloween, I decided to make a spooky dish that I never managed to served as a special: A bed of witch's-hair tossed with pasta stars and topped with pan-seared scallops and a saffron-cream sauce, or as I like to call it "Full moon on a starry night."
Witch's hair is squid-ink angel hair. This is the one ingredient that kept me from running this as a special, because I could never find it. After buying supplies for my Halloween treat extravaganza, though, I decided to fake it. Twice.
Rather than buying the black angel hair, make your own by adding (entirely too much) Wilton's black food coloring to the pasta water. (I wanted the color to stick, so I used thin spaghetti instead of angel hair, for the longer cook/dye time.)
NOTE: You might stain whatever utensil you use to stir the pasta!
While both pastas cook (stars separate from the witch's hair), mince a clove of garlic and throw it in a hot pan with 2 Tbsp. of melted butter. Immediately add the scallops and salt and pepper (to taste). When the scallops are *almost* done, add a Tbsp of flour to form a quick roux. Then pour n servings of white sauce into the pan and add half a pinch of saffron.
Doesn't matter what white sauce - you can use a jar of alfredo, homemade béchamel, or even just dump heavy cream in the pan and make it ala minute.Drain and rinse the pastas when they're cooked to your liking (the stars will finish first). Continue rinsing the witch's hair until the water runs mostly clear (to prevent it from coloring the white stars). Once rinsed and drained, gently toss the two pastas together.
Arrange a bed of pasta on the plate. Group the scallops wherever you want to place your moon, then pool the cream sauce in a circle over the top.
Ta-da!
(I recycled the black water to cook some bowtie "bats." More on those, later.)
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