Tuesday, March 26, 2013

March 26, 2013, Dinner - Sautéed Scallops with fresh garden greens and pasta with pesto

March 26, 2013, Dinner - Sautéed Scallops with fresh garden greens and pasta with pesto

I thawed out 1/2 lb. of scallops and a jar of pesto from the freezer.  When Suzette came home we decided to see what greens were usable in our garden.  We picked about 2 cups of kale and beet tops and arugula leaves.  I rough cut the greens and Suzette started the pasta water boiling.  When the pasta water came to a boil, she added the pasta.
Then Suzette put 1 Tbsp. of olive oil and 1 Tbsp. of butter in a skillet with about four or five cloves of minced garlic.  After the skillet heated she added the scallops and then some white wine and after a minute, added the greens and covered the skillet with a lid so the greens would steam.

When the pasta was fully cooked Suzette drained it and stirred in about 3 Tbsp. of pesto.  Then Suzette scooped pasta into a pasta bowl and topped it with scallops and greens with their wine and garlic sauce.
I fetched a bottle of 2010 Lacheteau Vouvray from the Loire Valley (Trader Joe’s $7.99) from the basement and poured it.  I would guess it has about 5% residual sugar to volume; the bottle says it is semi-dry and 12% BV (by volume).  That 12% BV provides a little clue that the sugars were not fully fermented into alcohol, because if they had been the alcohol percentage would probably have been closer to 13.5 to 14% BV.  There is more information of interest on the label of the bottle, "mis en bouteille par Lacheteau Negotiant, Mouzillon, France"  This tells me that the wine was bottled in Vouvray for a wine wholesaler/distributor in Mouzillon, which tells me it was not good enough to put one's own name and vineyard on it or was wine made by one or more small producers and bottled in bulk. This is like the Cameron Hughes wines we see at Costco.  They are often an aggregation of wines from a region mixed together and bottled for a large American Wine distributor (Negociant), without much information about their origin.  The wine was a little sweet without that crisp fruitiness and minerality one gets in the better Chenin Blancs (although arguably worth the $7.99 it cost at Trader Joe's), but fine with the rich scallops and slightly bitter greens.

Bon Appétit

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