Want to see your co-workers’ eyes light up?
It’s simple. Tell them you’re going to be cooking them some scallops.
The same trick works for family members or guests. Scallops are beloved by pretty much everyone who can eat them (shellfish allergies need not apply). And why not? They’re tender, they’re sweet, they taste ever so slightly of the sea.
They’re also easy to make, and fast — if it takes you much longer than three or four minutes to cook them, you’ve done something wrong.
The only problem is, they aren’t cheap. The ones I used for this article cost me nearly $28 a pound. They are so deliciously rich that you don’t want to eat more than a few at a time, but still: Twenty-eight bucks a pound is twenty-eight bucks a pound.
These are sea scallops I’m talking about, the large scallops. Bay scallops, the smaller ones, are about half as expensive. They are also somewhat less satisfying but are even faster to cook.