Birthday Scallops

Careful readers of this blog will know that on our birthdays, Hayes-Bohs get whatever they want for dinner and dessert. Or pretty close to it. They will also know that throughout the year, our culinary choices are increasingly influenced by the National Day Calendar. Pam's birthday dinner this year was a result of a confluence of these tendencies, though with a fairly flexible application of the calendar.

A couple weeks before the blessed event, Pam noticed that May 16 is National Coquilles Saint Jacques Day. Because it fell on a weekend this year and she noticed it ahead of time, we seriously thought about celebrating this heretofore unknown holiday on its actual date. But the recipe highlighted on the National Day site seemed a bit complicated and more worthy of a birthday celebration.

Bonus: waiting also meant that our visiting son could both be part of the celebration and part of the brain power needed to overcome one challenge we faced: this appetizer (or appetizer-as-meal in our case) is traditionally served on a scallop shell. I hoped our local fishmonger might have them -- as it is located in one of the world's premiere scallop-landing harbors -- but no such luck. Way too late in the planning, I realized that I could get scallop plates online. 

In progress but not in focus -- note
Harvey's skillful potato piping

Here is where our Harvey's creativity came in: the recipe calls for piping mashed potatoes around the edge of the shells, like icing at the edge of a cake. We could therefore use potatoes as the base of this appetizer. We essentially created a seafood version of twice-baked potatoes, following the recipe above to a tee, except that we began by slicing and partly baking potatoes, scooping them out, and then using that for an edge that our artist was able to create using his mad dexterity. He also rightly suggested brushing with olive oil and dusting with paprika before the broiling stage.

Grey-on-gray food made a bit more
photogenic by salad and cool nautical
pepper shaker

While I followed the rest of the recipe carefully in terms of ingredients, I did not do so in terms of sequence. I thought the sauce would take longer than the bouillon and the potatoes longer than either of these, so I did things in an awkward order this really complicated what should have been a very basic white sauce. If I follow this recipe again, I would still start the potatoes early, but I would complete the  bouillon starting the sauce.

Image: Holy Art

On May 16 next year, however, I will be prepared in two ways. First, I will have purchased the correct plates, harvested in the British Isles. Second, curious about the word "coquille" I found out that it means any appetizer of this sort involving a wine and cream sauce. I found several other recipes that do not involve potatoes, and I think they will be easier.  One of those recipes is in Scallops: A New England Coastal Cookbook, which also includes some remarkable information about the natural history of bay scallops. Incidentally, this was my first time cooking with bays -- I had always been intimidated.

DESSERT

We musn't forget dessert! Key lime pie is usually Pam's first choice and I have often managed to make a decent one including, apparently, in May 2017. (For the record, she has been to Key West just once; I have not yet gotten to any of the Florida Keys.)

For this year, however, enter another hero: we won a pair of key lime pies in our church auction, offered by McKayla, a fellow church member, my former student, and (most importantly for this post) a Florida native. Prepared and delivered with care the day before, it was PERFECT.

Lagniappe: That Saint

The adjectival form of James is Jacobian, and my name means "usurper" after Esau's greedy brother Jacob. So the conflation of Saint James and Saint Jacques are familiar to me. What was not familiar is the identity of St. James as the patron of scallopers -- he is sometimes depicted with shells around his neck and Crusaders sometimes adorned themselves with the shells as well.