Butter get busy

0

This week, I decided to talk about something dear to my heart: getting laid. This recipe is the ultimate time-to-take-things-to-the-bone-zone meal, unless you’re cooking for your family — in that case, I say, do not cook this particular recipe. It’s just too powerful.

Beurre blanc, which is French for “The butter to connect all love parts,” is the catalyst for the inevitable sex romp this recipe is sure to incite.

Who can explain why we get so hot and bothered when we ingest enough butter to kill an entire planet of vegan fairy tree people? Scientists have died trying to figure it out.

But until they do, here’s a saturated-fat humdinger for between the sheets.

SCALLOPS WITH BLOOD ORANGE BEURRE BLANC AND LEMON RISOTTO

In order for everything to be ready at the same time, you need to do both the risotto and beurre blanc simultaneously, then do the scallops, which only take a few minutes.

THE RISOTTO:

1 cup

Arborio rice

1 3/4 cups of stock

1 tbsp. shredded hard cheese 1 tbsp. butter 1 tbsp. lemon juice Salt and pepper

Toast rice in a dry pan on medium until you can smell the rice — kind of a nutty scent (anyone turned on yet?) Add stock in ¼-cup stages.

Wait until liquid is absorbed each time before adding more stock. Keep stirring the whole time.

Add lemon juice and stir.

Cook for two minutes.

Add cheese and butter and remove from heat. Salt and pepper to taste.

THE BEURRE BLANC:

1 cup white wine

1 bay leaf

Two sprigs of thyme

¼ cup cream

4 tbsp. butter

¼ cup blood orange juice (from fresh blood oranges if you can find them)

Place wine, thyme and bay leaf into a pan and reduce on medium until it’s syrupy. Cut butter into ½-tbsp. pieces and set aside.

Add the cream and cook for about two minutes. Add blood orange juice and cook for one minute.

Remove pan from heat and add first ½-tbsp. piece of butter and stir until it melts into the sauce. Keep adding pieces of butter and stirring. If a piece starts to take too long, return the pan to the heat for a minute or so.

Once all butter is incorporated, pour through a strainer into a bowl.

THE SCALLOPS:

8 sea scallops

1 tsp. olive oil Salt and pepper

Lay scallops on a paper towel and dry each side.

Turn pan on medium high and let it heat up.

Season both flat sides of each scallop from at least one foot above with salt and pepper.

Pour oil in pan and spread it out. Oil will begin to smoke. Add scallops one by one, making a circle (or one circle inside another bigger circle) in the pan. Let them cook for about one minute. Then take a spoon and peek under the first scallop you put into the pan. If the bottom is nicely seared, and you can see white spreading up the sides of the scallop almost to the middle of it, flip it over. Do the same with the rest, in the order you placed them in the pan. Cook scallops on opposite side for another minute or two. Once that side is seared like the top, remove from pan and let them rest on a plate for about a minute.

THE PLATING:

Pour a thin layer of beurre blanc on plate, maybe in a zig-zag, who cares. The sauce is rich, so you only need a tiny bit. Place scallops on top and put a couple mounds of the risotto wherever you feel like. You can use my example in the photo to guide your plating, but any expert will tell you that having round scallops offset by circle-molded risotto is amateur hour. Use more variation, especially if you’re trying to bed someone who knows anything about cooking.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com