Sea scallops three ways: Seared, butter-poached and Asian fusion

The Eat Alaska Project is a partnership of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute and Alaska Grown.

Spend a few minutes chatting with Brendan Harrington -- owner and operator of the only fresh market scallop boat in Alaska -- and he'll redefine your notion of scallops, from fussy and fancy to quick and versatile.

"They go well with anything -- salad, pasta," he said. "If you have a pound in the freezer and need a quick dinner, they thaw out in 10 minutes."

Harrington's boat, the Homer-based F/V Kilkenny, is well-known around coastal Alaska, and when it's due to arrive in Homer with its cargo of wild Weathervane scallops, locals form a line that wraps all around the dock.

We spoke a couple of weeks before the July 1 opener, and Harrington was so busy with season prep that he came to the phone out of breath. (He had been doing maintenance on the Kilkenny and hauling new batteries at 200 pounds apiece.)

He starts near Kodiak, works his way along the Southeast coast toward Prince William Sound, and sometimes even ventures out into the Bering Sea during the course of a season that can last through February. As Harrington described it, scallops live on sandy, muddy, "featureless" scapes of the ocean floor and filter plankton. To collect them, he uses a planing board -- a metal plate that drags along at a 45-degree angle to the sea floor and creates an updraft with enough turbulence to flip the scallops into a bag.

On a good day, he'll harvest 1,000 pounds. After a week of good days, "I'll hit the dock with eight to nine thousand pounds of scallops," he said. Local chefs and residents make up much of his market and buy what they can handle, but with hauls like those, he'll sell the rest to seafood distributors.

"It's a delicate process," Harrington said of the logistics of keeping fresh market scallops totally fresh on a week to 10-day trip. He and his crew shuck and clean the scallops at sea and keep them at 33 degrees by putting them on ice in 50-pound cotton bags, making sure no two bags touch each other (to maintain equal temperatures). On the water, the boat operates 24 hours a day, maintaining two separate watches each with two skippers and two crews -- a nonstop cycle of catching, shucking, cleaning and icing.

"It's just a lot of shucking," Harrington said of a day on deck. "There is a constant stream of shells flying in the wake of a boat, with birds flying behind, getting the guts."

Originally from Cape Cod, Mass., Harrington's dad, Bill, moved the family to Alaska after East Coast fisheries crashed in the early '80s. It wasn't totally tragic. The elder Mr. Harrington had been dreaming of Alaska for years prior.

"It's hard with family lore," Harrington joked. "(Dad) likes to think he saw it all coming."

The Kilkenny also made the journey from the Cape, via the Panama Canal. Built in 1967, it is the last wooden rig in the Homer harbor. Since landing in Alaska, captains have fished halibut, cod, black cod and now scallops, all from its trusty hull.

Known for their size and quality (the F/V Kilkenny has a picture on its Facebook page of a palm-sized scallop), Weathervane scallops, the kind harvested in Alaska waters, are the largest in the world, and Kodiak tends to produce the largest in the state, Harrington said. In addition to being Alaska-wild, never-frozen and sold direct at dock, Harrington's scallops are never chemically treated: "They're totally fresh: just shucked, rinsed and bagged up."

So what tips does Harrington have for the home chef preparing these world-class Weathervanes?

"Don't overcook them. That's the No. 1 thing," he said. "Three minutes." (That's one and a half per side.)

His favorite way to eat a scallop is seared -- pure and simple. But he's also started poaching them in butter, which involves continually spooning hot butter over the scallop until it's sufficiently cooked and heated through.

"They're pretty rich," he said.

Given that scallops are one of the pricier, rarer types of locally harvested seafoods from which Alaskans have to choose, here's why Harrington thinks we should all be eating more of them:

"They cost a little bit more money, but you're eating 100 percent of what you buy," he said. "They're a good value in that sense."

Alaska Weathervane scallops, he continued, "are just the most delicious thing to come out of the sea."

Chu Chee Red Curry Scallops and Green Beans

Recipe courtesy of Navachai Family, Lemongrass, Fairbanks

?Start to finish: 25 minutes

Servings: 2 - 4

1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil + 2 teaspoons

1 tablespoon Thai red curry paste

2 cups Alaska grown green beans, trimmed and cut into bite-size pieces

1 Alaska grown carrot, cut into bite-size pieces (about 1 cup)

One 12-ounce can unsweetened coconut cream

1 1/2 teaspoons fish sauce

1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

1 small red bell pepper, thinly sliced (about 1 cup)

1 kaffir lime leaf, thinly sliced, divided

8 - 10 Alaska scallops

Garnishes: finishing salt and fresh lime wedges

Heat a heavy-bottom pan over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon oil and curry paste; cook, stirring occasionally, until fragrant and toasted, being careful not to burn.

Add green beans and carrot; stir and cook 1 to 2 minutes, reducing heat if paste starts to burn. Add coconut cream, fish sauce, sugar, red bell pepper and half of kaffir lime; stir and cook 1 minute.

Pat scallops dry with paper towels. Heat remaining 2 teaspoons oil in a large skillet until hot. Add scallops in a single layer, being careful not to overcrowd the pan, and let sear until golden brown on one side (about 1 ½ minutes). Turn and place uncooked side in the curry sauce and finish cooking (about 1 minute).

Garnish with remaining kaffir lime, finishing salt and lime wedges, if desired. Serve with jasmine rice.

This story is sponsored by the Eat Alaska Project. Make this dish and post a photo on social media! Tag it with #eatalaska.

This article was produced by the special content department of Alaska Dispatch News in collaboration with Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute and Alaska Grown. The ADN newsroom was not involved in its production.?