It is quite common when you take a look at the native cuisine from any one particular country to come up with a particular theme or common approach / name for the catering or cuisine from that country. Such as Chinese Food, Thai Food etc but to be honest it could be argued that with regards to Spain there is no such thing as ?Spanish? food as with the make up and historical heritage of Spain it is not quite that simple.
The reason for this is that Spain is an amalgam of its constituent parts that is to say it could be described as a political construct which is made up of disparate groups with their own languages, cultures, cuisines etc. These autonomous regions have been slowly amalgamated through a number of different processes throughout history but have all kept their own distinctive features.
The number of autonomous different regions that form what we would nowadays refer to as Spain is 17; they all have their own linguistic variations of the language, in some cases it's a different sub language entirely and as well as their own cultures most definitely have their own individual cuisines. One of those autonomous regions comprises the north-western province of Galicia.
Galicia is surrounded on two sides by the Atlantic Ocean and it is pretty understandable to think that for a region that has such an involvement with the sea, its cuisine would also be heavily influenced by the sea. That having said not all of Galician cuisine is all seafood based and the region can lay claim to some quite gorgeous recipes and provincial dishes and are all well worth trying out.
Enough of all of the chat and lets get down to the serious business of food!
For this particular recipe we are to provide enough for four people and as such you are going to need the following ingredients;
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
100 ml of dry white wine or dry sherry
4 tablespoons of breadcrumbs
50 g of butter, melted
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon of parsley, chopped
12 launch fresh scallops cleaned and still with their shells
50 g of butter
Lemon Juice
Take your oven and preheat the oven to 200'C or gas mark 6
Start the recipe by taking your onion and frying the onion in some olive oil until the onion softens and then add the garlic. Cook the ingredients together for a few minutes or until the scent of garlic takes over and then it is time to add the wine (or sherry if that is the route you have gone down). Let the alcohol come to a boil and then reduce slightly and then stir in the melted butter, the seasoning the parsley and the breadcrumbs.
Take four oven proof dishes and grease them slightly with a little bit of butter. Take the scallops and divide them amongst the dishes before topping them with the bread crumb mixture.
Put a small piece of butter on top of scallops and place in the pre heated hot oven for anywhere between 12 to 15 minutes. A roof home here he is capable in the scallops and remove them when they are nicely crisped on the top. If you feel the scallops are cooked but they're not necessarily crisped on the top you could always finish them off by putting them under a grill. Remember however when you're in this final act of crisping the scallops that you don't go and burn the breadcrumbs.
