Seared Scallops with Champagne Beurre Blanc
Golden-seared scallops resting on a cloud of champagne beurre blanc — one of France's most elegant sauces, born from a happy accident in the Loire Valley, and still the ultimate companion to fine seafood.
- 12large dry sea scallops(U-10 size)
- 0.5 cupchampagne
- 2 tbspshallot(minced)
- 0.5 cupcold butter(cubed)
- 1 tbspfresh lemon juice
- 2 tbspolive oil
- 0.5 tspkosher salt
- 0.25 tspwhite pepper
- 1 tbspfresh chives(minced, for garnish)
- 1 tspsalmon roe(optional, for garnish)
Beurre blanc can be made 30 minutes ahead; keep warm over very low heat. Scallops must be seared just before serving.
- 1Remove side muscle from scallops and pat very dry with paper towels
- 2Season with salt and pepper
- 3For beurre blanc: simmer champagne and shallot until reduced to 2 tablespoons
- 4Remove from heat and whisk in cold butter one cube at a time
- 5Add lemon juice and keep warm (not hot or it will break)
- 6Heat olive oil in skillet over high heat until smoking
- 7Sear scallops 2 minutes per side until golden crust forms
- 8Plate scallops and drizzle with champagne beurre blanc
- 9Garnish with chives and optional salmon roe
- 10Serve immediately
Dry scallops (not treated with phosphates) sear better. They must be extremely dry for proper caramelization. Don't move them while searing - let the crust form. The butter must stay emulsified - if the sauce gets too hot, it will break.
Beurre blanc — white butter sauce — has its roots in the Loire Valley of France, the river region whose butter has been prized in French cooking for centuries. Wikipedia traces references to beurre blanc as far back as 1669, when an anonymous author of Le nouveau cuisinier français mentioned it as a sauce for pumpkin, though the modern emulsified version is a later creation. The story credited by most culinary historians begins in the kitchen of Clémence Lefeuvre, a cook who worked in the Loire Valley at the turn of the 20th century. According to legend, she was preparing a béarnaise sauce and forgot to add the egg yolks and tarragon — the result was a warm, creamy emulsion of butter, wine, and shallots that she served anyway. The Marquis de Goulaine, who received the sauce, loved it. Food writer Curnonsky called Lefeuvre "the high priestess of the beurre blanc," and the prominent French statesman Aristide Briand was a regular at her restaurant near the Loire River. By 1938, the sauce had been codified in the first edition of Larousse Gastronomique, cementing its place in the canon of French cookery. Beurre blanc is not one of the classical French mother sauces — it contains no eggs, no cream, and no flour — which is precisely what makes it so remarkable: it achieves its silky, stable texture through nothing more than cold butter whisked into a hot reduction of shallots, wine, and vinegar. The champagne version substitutes the wine component for sparkling wine, lending a faint mineral brightness to the sauce that makes it especially fine with scallops.