Grilled Scallops with Ginger & Garlic Scape Butter

See Woo in Chinatown now has a fishmonger added to their supermarket, as well as a butchery counter. I love that I now have access to fresh seafood, including lobsters and crabs in their tanks, at an hour I can feasibly get there after work; usually I have to wait until the weekend and cycle over to East Dulwich. 

All the usual suspects are there; sea bream, turbot, prawns - but they also have salmon heads, and red grouper, and conger eel. There's also live eels in tanks, but I can't look at them too closely as they're basically sea snakes and that gives me the right wibbles. 

I bought some scallops, live in their shell, and was asked if I wanted them cleaned. I was perfectly willing to do it myself, until I remembered the 8 I was tasked to prise out of their shells , and de-frill at New Year's Eve, and the incredibly weird nightmare I had associated with it, that very night. Yes, yes you can sort them out for me. 

What happened to the roes?! I actually gasped out loud when I opened them at home, only mildly placated that there were 2 left intact. Maybe the man thought I wouldn't want them. That's what I get for being lazy. At £3.80 for 5, I will definitely be eating a lot more of them.

As they were going to be part of a Chinese meal, I wanted them to fit in but damn I wanted that garlic butter bad. So, I used garlic scapes - they are a sturdy thick grassy stem, and it smells pungently of garlic. They're delicious; crunchy, sweet, and without being too over-poweringly garlicky. They're also really great stir-fried with bacon (which is a recipe in Chinatown Kitchen). Ginger is a natural partner to seafood, and these turned out beautifully. We polished off those plump, sweet scallops and drizzled that butter, pooled in the shells, over the rice. Waste not want not and all that. 

Scallops with Ginger and Garlic Scape Butter

Enough for 5 scallops

5 scallops, with shells
2 stems of garlic scape, minced
3cm piece of ginger, peeled and minced
A hefty pinch of salt
A smaller pinch of white pepper 
60gr butter
1 tsp mirin
A dribble of cooking oil

Using fridge cold butter, really work the pepper, garlic scapes, ginger, salt, oil and mirin into it. 

Preheat the oven on high and add the shells to a rack to heat up, for 4 minutes. Add the butter, which should hit with a sizzle, then add the scallops and grill for a few minutes, depending on the size of them. If your scallops are fresh, don't be scared and over-cook them; they are far better, nay desirable, being slightly under-done. 

Turn the scallops over, baste with the butter, and grill until cooked. Serve as part of a feast, with steamed rice.