Do you want to impress your guests with an elegant starter that looks sophisticated but requires very little work?
Then prepare these oven-baked scallops au gratin! They seem like an extremely refined dish but are actually very simple to make and truly delicious.
My mother taught me how to make them, but I assure you I spent more time writing this article than preparing the scallops!
By the way, my son, who is sometimes picky about fish, would eat a ton of these with this tasty, “crispy” breadcrumb coating, as he calls it.
In the tips you’ll also find variations and how to proceed using frozen scallops instead of fresh ones.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Medium
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Cooking time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 4 SERVINGS
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 4 Scallops (or 8 if they are small)
- 4 tablespoons Breadcrumbs
- 1 tablespoon Parmigiano Reggiano (grated)
- 1 small bunch Parsley
- 1 clove Garlic
- to taste Salt
- to taste Pepper
- to taste Extra virgin olive oil
Preparation
The first thing to do is clean the scallops. Gently remove the mollusk from the shell without breaking it and rinse it under plenty of water; likewise, wash the shell thoroughly, dry it and set it aside.
Meanwhile, finely chop the garlic and parsley. In a bowl put the chopped herbs, add the grated Parmigiano Reggiano, the breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. Stir well with a spoon to combine the ingredients thoroughly.Then put the scallops back into the reserved shells – sometimes the scallops are not very large and in those cases I use two per shell – and season them with the breadcrumb mixture you just prepared.
Drizzle with a little olive oil. Place the scallops on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake in a preheated oven at 374°F for about 15 minutes. You will see the surface turn golden and form a nice crust. At this point they are ready to be served.
Notes
To clean the scallops properly you must first open them, remove the mollusks and discard the unwanted parts: only the white adductor muscle and the orange coral should remain. Also rinse the shells under running water. This recipe can easily be used for mussels as well, which can be stuffed in the same way. In that case, cooking times are obviously shorter since the mollusks are smaller—allow about 10 minutes. Finally, since fresh scallops are not always available and can be a bit expensive, I often buy them frozen; besides being readily available and cheaper, they are sold already cleaned. Simply thaw them and then proceed with the recipe as written.
