Sensational Sea Scallop Sandwiches
Our rating: 4.8 / 5 
July 20th, 2008
Sometimes playing with standard concepts can be fun. For this meal we took the idea of a sandwich, and used perfectly seared huge sea scallops as the “bread”. For the “filling” of the sandwich we layered crispy, smokey thick slices of bacon, brussels sprout leaves that were sauteed in the bacon drippings, and herb-y sauteed shitake mushrooms. To finish the plate, we added a fresh and vibrant slow-roasted tomato and tarragon vinaigrette.
T: and we’re back.
A: with a bang, yo! we’ve been cooking tons of good shiz lately (although not posting much), but this…this was out of control!
T: this was beyond all control, and sooo tasty. Scallops are great by themselves, but these were above and beyond plain scallops. Oh yeah.
A: seriously! first off, you have to be out of your mind if you don’t like some huge-ass sea scallops… ditto with bacon -
T: preach on, sista!
A: but take those two great items, put them together with some other really tasty ingredients like bacony brussels sprout leaves, herbalicious shitake mushrooms, and to top it all off an insanely good, uber-fresh tasting tarragon tomato vinaigrette. mmm Mmm MMM!
T: Seriously that tomato sauce was one of my favorite parts. I would have drunk it. I would have drunk it until I got sick.
A: heheheh fortunately for you, i only made a small amount - just enough to use up completely on our four scallop sandwiches.
T: actually it would have been nice to drink it until I got sick. Just saying.
A: alright freak. 
do you have a rating for this little ditty?
T: ooh, we’ve been out of the rating game for a while. Umm… I give this ditty a 4.9/5.
A: woahzers t, that’s a huge score! i mean, this play on sandwiches was the bomb digs, but a 4.9?!? crazy!
T: it was ridiculously good. If the tomato sauce had not been so good the overall score would have gone down, but it was all just absurdly good. So, what do you give it?
A: i pretty much agree with your loco rating… i just can’t go that high. I give it a 4.78/5. it was un-freaking-believable. the scallops were perfectly cooked and each element just really worked. it’s a shame sea scallops are so expensive. 
T: I know. Otherwise we’d have to eat them everyday. All seafood is expensive though
A: which i think is really weird… considering we live two blocks from the pacific ocean!
T: yeah. I guess we could go fishin’. Ehh. Not feeling it actually.
3 roma tomatoes, cut in half length-wise
2 sprigs thyme
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
canola oil - 2 tbsp for tomatoes, 3 tbsp for vinaigrette
1 1/4 tsp fresh tarragon, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp red wine vinegar
kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
Preheat oven to 200 degrees. In a small shallow baking dish, place tomato halves cut-side up. Drizzle with 2 tbsp canola oil. Sprinkle liberally with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Toss the seasoned tomatoes with the chopped garlic and thyme sprigs. Reposition tomatoes, making sure they are still cut-side up. Bake tomatoes at 200 degrees for 2 1/2 hours until tomatoes are completely tender/cooked through and starting to shrink up.
Once the tomatoes are done, remove the thyme from the pan. Allow the tomatoes to cool slightly until you are able to handle them. Remove the skins of the tomatoes over the baking dish. The tomatoes will be mostly liquid and not hold thier shape so be careful! They could be hot!
Pour all of contents of the baking dish and the red wine vinegar into a blender or food processor. Blend. While blending, slowly drizzle in 3 tbsp canola oil.
Pour the tomato vinaigrette into a bowl. Stir in the finely chopped tarragon. Season the vinaigrette with freshly cracked black pepper and kosher salt to taste. Enjoy on damn near anything or simply spoon to yourself in private! 
July 21st, 2008 at 1:20 am
Tasty eats, most certainly.
But please, Amanda, take a step back for a moment before one of the roving anti-Rachael-Ray mobs gets wind of your dialogue.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:50 am
Scallops + Bacon = win
Everytime.
Glad you’re back!
July 21st, 2008 at 8:22 am
It looks so…classy! And fancy!
Actually, it’s funny, I’ve made pizzas with scallops and bacon, kind of a standard I think, but I’ve also on a whim I’ve done bacon and shredded brussel spouts. After seeing this maybe I should combine the two sometime.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Head to head, head to head, head to head!!!!
July 21st, 2008 at 12:04 pm
How do you get the Scallops to rise? And shouldn’t it be SEAnsational?
July 21st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
You guys have outdone yourselves with this one. It looks fantastic.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 am
bummer you’re disgruntled, disgruntle. i am what i am - take it or leave it.
thanks jef! i hope things are well in the northeast. i think we’ve been posting at a pretty equal rate for the last… oh… half year!
thanks tastynewengland! you definitely should! it was a great combo. btw, i like your site!
bobby, some people can control cobras with whistles, i can cantrol scallops. when i say rise, they rise… bitch
thanks kalyn! i hope Blogher went well! i was truly bummed that i couldn’t make it up there.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:57 am
Just curious… how do you eat these lil sammies? Do you pop ‘em in whole, cut ‘em up, pick up like a sandwich? They look great!
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Awesome - I think you’ve just inspired me with tomorrow’s lunch and it will be just for me.
I’ve never seen sprout leaves before- what do they taste like?
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
hey your picture is featured on Food Porn Daily.
Just an FYI.
I got to your blog in my feeds and went wow that picture looks familiar.
Beautiful meal and presentation - i want to have dinner with you guys!
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:01 pm
jessie, we actually ate them a few different ways. we started by eating them with toothpicks - hors d’oeuvre style then we moved to eating them with a knife and fork! frankly, we would have been willling to get them into our mouthes any way possible they were so good!
Thanks ros! i hope you take pics - i would love to see what you do on your site! i’ve been horribly anti-social lately but i still love everything you do.
thanks stephany! if you’re in the san diego area we would love to have dinner with you too!
as far as FoodPornDaily goes… we actually run that site and all of the photos are either ours or Nicole’s (from Pinch My Salt until we start to get other contributions.
I can’t wait to look through your site and see what kind of yumminess you’ve got!
we’re super glad you like the meal and that you’re an FPD viewer!
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Damn, you guys!
July 24th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
My dad from RI loves to gloat about how much cheaper sea scallops (even the big-ass ones) are there than here is San Diego. Your recipe makes it worth the expense. I do have a question though: what’s “good shiz”?
July 24th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
for real, helena!
i am so envious of your dad for that reason, susan, although i wouldn’t give up the weather here for it!
i would visit home tons if i were you and make my dad feed me lots of scallops! 
about that question of yours… you know… good shiz… is, well… good shit! i mean shiz! 
July 27th, 2008 at 10:19 am
WHAT THE FRICK! this is gawl-darn fabUUUUUUUlous.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Hey guys! I’m tagging you for a meme. Check out my blog for details. Tyler, this one is calling to you, man! Who needs to know more about Amanda anyways, huh? She cooks, she eats. Done. The people want more Tyler!
July 30th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Those look freaking awesome! The Mr. has been wanting to do something similar since he saw the scallop sandwiches in Food and Wine last month. Those had bacon, I think, and a slice of plum. Now he’s going to want to make both….
July 30th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I’m with Tyler, except I wanna eat scallop sandwiches until I’m sick! Looks absolutely sensational. Very glad I stumbled upon your blog, and so is my belly!
August 1st, 2008 at 6:23 pm
The diaper you requested is in the mail, and mighty ripe!!!
August 6th, 2008 at 2:23 am
How genius, scallop sandwiches! I really love them and could brag to everyone that I ate six sandwiches for lunch!
August 6th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
OMG>>>I found your site from Kalyns Kitchen and boy am I glad. Looks incredible. Cant wait to try the scallop sandwich!!
August 7th, 2008 at 10:12 am
You know, I keep coming back here to see what deliciousness you have whipped up today, and I keep seeing those scallops. While they are delicious-looking, I KNOW y’all must be eating other things and hiding them from us!!! Liars!
August 7th, 2008 at 11:14 am
How cute are those? Looks like something you’d find as an appetizer at one of our local SD high end seafood restaurants. Great job!
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:34 pm
These look awesome guys! I love scallops. I will certainly have to try this.
August 25th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Good thing y’all don’t have a gardening blog, or y’all would never post…sheesh
August 27th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
That is one of the best things I have seen in a long time. Scallop sandwiches. Wow. Fantastic idea guys, and one I actually may try.
August 31st, 2008 at 9:25 pm
This recipe looks awesome, and I love your blog…very entertaining!
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
that’s my kind of sandwich!
September 9th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Aren’t you getting awfully tired of scallops? Almost six weeks of them is a lot.
September 18th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
lazy
September 18th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
hi ms. feather! i hope you guys made it through the storm alright! i meant to email you but… hold on! you just said it! i was lazy and never did it!
now, while we haven’t posted on wwe for a long ass time, we haven’t exactly been lazy - we’ve been doing a post a day, every day over on FoodPornDaily.
September 19th, 2008 at 10:21 am
We did get a lot of pecans and limbs, from our neighbor, and leaves but nothing else, oh we did get a lot of rain which was good because it made things that had just been getting by in the summer heat burst and a few things bloom!!!. I did lose a few plants and the jerusalem artichokes are all messed up, but seem to be fine growing on the ground. I also got activated for the guard, but really got paid to do nothing for two weeks.
September 19th, 2008 at 10:29 am
sweet! i love money for doing nothing! and i’m very glad to hear you guys didn’t get any real damage from gustav! you know, i’m still insanely envious of your garden. how’s clark doing? you still working at the place down town? i guess i really should be putting this in an email! damn it.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Hi Amanda! I am also an Amanda (by birth, but have always been called Mandy) and I also have a Tyler (well, not really, his name is actually Evan). But I do the cooking and he does the eating, just like the two of you. AND he’s a ginormous computer geek. In a really cute, hip way.
Just wanted to say hello and thanks for all of your great food sites. Have a fabulous weekend!
September 21st, 2008 at 10:35 am
but it’s just pictures! and not just of your food! and we don’t get the comments! lazy!? a little maybe? yes, we’re fine and Clarke is almost 1!
September 21st, 2008 at 11:53 am
Email? this is more fun. People can see how mean they really need to be to you Amanda, or should we start calling you MAN-dee? Not to offend the real Mandy from the earlier post. Yes I am still at the place downtown, but have been applying for state jobs, and had an interview so maybe i’ll get lucky. The storm actually cleaned out and killed a lot of stuff i’ve been meaning to pull out, but couldn’t bring myself to yank out. The jerusalem artichokes are the only thing really damaged, but just blown over and they keep on growing. A few things did die from way too much water, but nothing I was too attached to. I think the asparagus really liked all of the rain because it has exploded, and hopefully it will do just as well next year, its second year, and our first harvest. How is that for something that should have been an email???? And I could have gone on much much longer, just ask heather.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:56 am
most of it is my food!
and yeah, there is a laziness about it! the writing is always the hard part! i can not simply belive that clarke is almost one! i bet he does more than just drool on himself these days! 
you know bobby, i think it’s the publicness that gets me to respond! i love you guys and don’t want you to feel ignored… but in email, i just read it, want to respond, get distracted and never get around to it again! then a year has gone by and clarke is almost one! so how big is your patch of asparagus?!? that would be a great thing to have in the garden! you know, i’ve never actually had jerusaem artichokes! been reading about them for years but don’t actually recall an opportunity to buy them! i’m definitely glad to hear gustav didn’t torment you guys too badly! and tell heather (heather this parts for you!) she doesn’t need to shut you up! i like long comments! makes me feel like the blogs still going! (… just don’t get toooo personal!)
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:40 pm
“sandwich!”
“genius!”
“thank you.”