Great scallops in a garlic and thyme butter sauce

I made this as an appetizer for my husband´s 3 course 30th birthday dinner. Unbelievably flavorful and just great :). It´s amazing how easy and fast it is to make really good food when you use quality ingredients!

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• 4 large, fresh great scallops (in shell)
• A dash of vegetable oil
• 1 clove garlic
• A twig of thyme
• A dash of white wine
• A generous dollop of Åkrafjordsmør (this is salted butter mixed with sour creme, but other good butter would do as well)
• Lemon

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Norsk:

• 4 store, ferske kamskjell (i skjellet)
• En dæsj vegetabilsk olje
• 1 fedd hvitløk
• 1 kvist timian
• En dæsj hvitvin
• En god klatt med Åkrafjordsmør (men annet godt smør kan også godt brukes)

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Aren´t they beautiful? Make sure to store scallops with the rounded side down, and no longer that 3-4 days in the fridge.

Here´s a video on how to clean a scallop.

After cleaning the scallops, I boiled the discarded stuff from the scallops to make a stock for the sauce.

Clean the shells and keep them if you want to serve the scallops in them. Now sear the scallops in a little oil over medium heat.

Take care not to burn or overcook the meat, it should just get a golden surface while still being raw inside. Overcooked scallops are rubbery and tasteless! When they are almost done, add butter, garlic and the thyme to the pan and then pull the pan off the heat. Let the scallops “hang out” in the butter until it´s melted. Believe me, before long they´ll be best friends!

Take the scallops out of the pan, and arrange them in the shells. I arranged two scallops in one shell, and served us one shell each. Put the pan over the heat again. Add a little wine and a little of the stock, and bring to a boil. Taste it and add a little more butter if needed. Pour generously over the scallops and squeeze some lemon over. Garnish with thyme.

Oh heavenly scallop!

This could very well be served with a nicely chilled Chablis! We had this one:

The rest of the 3 course dinner will be posted shortly… Stay tuned!