I love the fishes 'cause they're so delicious

Being able to cook has other benefits than fulfilling ones own hedonistic culinary desires. Sometimes friends will come by with bags of excellent seafood and say, 'Hey, lets cook this.'. I guess it helps when said friend's roommate is a fishmonger. I went with an easy, but often poorly done favorite; bacon wrapped scallops.There are a few secrets to doing them well. When you wrap them only use enough bacon to wrap the scallop one time around. Having only enough overlap to secure with a toothpick. I made a quick St. Louis BBQ rub comprised of equal parts brown sugar and paprika and a pinch of: salt, chili powder, cayenne pepper, and onion powder. I sprinkled the rub on top of the scallops then rolled the bacon wrapped sides. While waiting for my broiler to reach temperature I put my cast iron pan in there to heat up. This allows for the scallops to cook evenly from both the bottom and top whilst broiling. Drop a bit of oil in the pan and get them in the broiler until the bacon crisps up.


For the shellfish I sweat down onions in butter then added garlic and herbs. After five minutes I added a combination of muscles, littleneck clams, and razor clams. Then came the steaming liquid of which you can use white wine or beer. I chose the latter and poured in a bottle of Sierra Nevada Torpedo extra IPA. Cover and steam your shellfish (if not previously frozen) until the shells open up and the muscles are a nice orange color. Using the aforementioned cream sauce recipe I substituted the shallots/stock with the steaming liquid from the shellfish. The flavor this gave to the sauce is indescribable. I ended up steaming the shellfish too long due to my focused attention on the cream sauce, so be careful. What I would suggest, since the cream sauce needs a fair amount of reduction, is to steam for 5 minutes, pour off some liquid for your sauce and get it started. That way by the time the shellfish are finished you're almost done with the sauce. We used thin spaghetti for the pasta incase anyone cared.