Scallops with Chestnut Sauce and Crispy Sage

This may look like a scallop dish, but it’s all about the bacon. Did I just say that? Yes, I know, I don’t eat red meat, and I use turkey bacon. Good, natural, nitrite-free turkey bacon can be found, and that’s what I use. Although, I’m hoping to get my hands on some local duck bacon one of these days, but I digress. What I wanted to explain was that the flavors in this dish were very subtle and lovely, and the smokiness from bacon was essential to the chestnut sauce. The recipe clearly states that one thick slice of bacon should be used, and my turkey bacon, natural or not, wasn’t sliced very thickly. So, I should have used two slices, but I couldn’t have known that before finishing the sauce. Regardless of fussy details like that, it was a delicious sauce for scallops with fried sage leaves. This was in the November issue of Food and Wine and was created by Rajat Parr. As I read the issue over Thanksgiving weekend, I decided then and there that this would be our Christmas Eve meal.

To begin the sauce, the bacon of your choice is to be cooked in butter. Not a bad start for building flavor. After the bacon has cooked, a chopped leek was added. Next, cognac was to be added and flamed, but since I really didn’t want to burn the house down on Christmas Eve, I opted to just let the cognac simmer without flames. Last, chicken stock and vacuum-packed chestnuts were added, and the sauce was brought to a boil. It simmered for three minutes before being transferred to a blender to be pureed. The puree was poured back into a saucepan and was kept warm on the stove while the sage leaves were fried and the scallops were seared.

The primary ingredients here, scallops and chestnuts, are both very mild. Scallops have a slight sweetness, and chestnuts are almost earthy, but the bacon smoke and sage were there to tie it all together and punch it up a bit. The sauce was velvety and thick without being too rich. I knew as I tasted it I should have used a little more bacon, and how often does that thought ever occur to me, but it was still a great match for simply seared scallops.

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