Mussels, scallops, tart

On Saturday we attempted the rest of the menu. Steve and Sarah kindly served as our guinea pigs, as well as lending us an ice cream maker for the sorbet. We got about 4 lbs of mussels and 12 scallops from Whole Foods. We had to take 2 lbs in Green mussels since they only had limited black mussels. We also learned that you had to take the mussels out of the plastic bag immediately, then rinse them and put them in a bowl in the fridge, covered with a towel with ice on top. This seemed to keep them fairly fresh for the couple of hours before we cooked them. Cooking the mussels was pretty easy, except that we found we had to keep them in the pot for longer than the 3 minutes as specified in the recipe. This could be due to just too much mussels at once (all 4 lbs went in). So after about 10 minutes almost all of them opened up, though there were a few that were a bit undercooked (we learned to tell them by the very small openings of the shells). Otherwise, the sauce was quite good and easy to make up, and we ate the dish with plenty of toasted baguette. Although in the future I think I prefer the black to the green mussels.

The scallops went pretty smoothly as well. They seared on the skillet easily with the butter. We kept the time to about 2 minutes for the first side, and less than that on the flip, and they turned out not overcooked and very sweet. The endives could have used some more seasoning, but the sauce was good even though we used some sour cream instead of creme fraiche (we were cheap).

We made the tarte the night before. We were apprehensive about the finicky nature of the sabayon. Luckily we already had a double boiler, and the custard thickened up without too much trouble. I think the key is vigorous whisking, like constantly, until the thickness appeared. The crust was made with food processor and kitchen-aid, and we made sure to bake it pretty well as suggested in the earlier posts. We also browned the top using the broiler method, and you really do have to watch it the whole time. The top browned in way under a minute, and we weren't too sure how brown to let it get, so we quit while we're ahead. The tart turned out lemony and light, everyone liked it a lot.

We also made the candied peel ahead of time, and it turned out better then expected. We boiled the sugar solution for like 40 minutes, but the temperature never got above 190 on our digital thermometer. So we just gave up on reaching 230 and stopped cooking it. Perhaps our thermometer was busted, but I doubt it. The peel by that time was translucent and in thick syrup. We waited till the next morning, and put them on racks to drain for a few hours (read this in another cookbook). Then we took them out and rolled them in sugar, and they actually turned out pretty good! The sugar seemed to dry them out a little, so they can be handled easily, and they are chewy and not crunchy. Not sure if that's how candied peels are supposed to be, but rolling them in sugar seems to be the key, and doesn't seem like they need to be cooked until 230.

Finally we took a crack at the sorbet. We juiced about 6 blood oranges to get half the recipe (1 1/2 cups). However the ice cream maker insert was not completely frozen by dinner time, so we'll have to attempt this later in the week. Instead we substituted with vanilla ice cream from Ben and Jerry.