Happy Val-um-times!

Dinner for my sweetie tonight. It's kind of a tradition for me to cook dinner for my darlin on Valentine's Day. I did have to work tonight for awhile, so I wanted to have a quick but elegant dinner. I stopped by Paul Anthony's in Jackson and picked up a few things including some AWESOME fresh scallops. Here's what we had tonight:

Start out a pot of boiling, salted water and add some thick linguini. Surprisingly, this took longer than anything else. Finely dice one SHALLOT. Add about a tablespoon of OLIVE OIL to a pan and then the shallots. Cook for about 1 minute until shallots are translucent. Add 1 cup of SEAFOOD STOCK, 1 cup of WHITE WINE of your choice, 1/2 cup of LEMON JUICE. Allow this to reduce until it's nearly dry. (called au sec for you nerds that need to know.) Add about 1 stick of BUTTER one small pat at a time. I'd wait until the very end to add the butter and whisk whisk whisk! Make sure the butter is cold. I used some cultured butter that I found at Paul Anthony's and it was fab. OK, on your Viking Griddle (or your lame-o skillet) spray with a non stick spray and place SCALLOPS. Let these begin to sear and form a brown caramel crust. After there's some color on both sides, add 2 tablespoons of butter and 1/4 cups of lemon juice. Salt and pepper the scallops.

Place 4 or 5 cups of SPINACH in your colander and pour your pasta over the spinach. The heat from the water will wilt your spinach and not overcook it so it will be fresh and delicious. Add the pasta and spinach into the lemon burre blanc sauce. (yup, that's what it's called.) Add some salt and pepper as needed. I finished with some really good lemon infused olive oil.

I kept saying that this was very pure, very bright flavored. (Modest huh?)