Let me preface this with that I tried, guys. I really did.
Today, October 2, is National Fried Scallops Day. While I typically champion all things fried, today’s food of honor was a definite challenge for me. I don’t do seafood, okay? The only “seafood” I like (okay, LOVE) are crab rangoons… and we all know that there should be quotations around the word crab in this instance. I’m also a-ok with anchovy paste and fish sauce. Fermented fish juice > fresh fish, at least in my world.
I ventured to Whole Foods after work to pick up some scallops. I had to choose between the small Bay Scallops or those big and juicy monster Sea Scallops, so duh I picked the itty bitty ones. And I bought two.
I was excited to take a picture of the wrapped up scallops with a price sticker that said like, 10 cents or whatever, but apparently if you buy two tiny wads of seafood they let you have them for free. So, thanks Whole Foods for taking away my joy. Seriously, I was legitimately more excited to take the photo of the price sticker than I was to eat a fried scallop. (Bad sign?)
Turns out, scallops stink. Are scallops supposed to stink? Did he give them to me for free because they were rancid? Here, weird girl asking for TWO scallops, take the old, rank ones!
I set up the world’s smallest dredging station and heated up some oil. I believe this was my first foray into deep frying in my own apartment. In college some of my dude friends (shout out to Wilson Street boys!) had a massive deep fryer and sometimes we would fry things and drink beer. I don’t recall frying up scallops. Pizza, yes. Scallops, no.
Verdict? Ish is nasty, y’all. It was nasty on its own, and it was nasty dunked in a bunch of sriracha. I might have cooked them too long, but the texture wasn’t the issue so much as it smelled like I was eating from a dumpster behind a Chinatown fish market on a 100 degree day.
Excited for a new day. Tomorrow: National Carmel Custard Day.
OK, I love scallops but even I wouldn’t want to eat them fried. Unless you like seafood, scallops would be tough! For your sake, I hope there isn’t a mussels day!
Frying them made our apartment smell like a Long John Silvers. Well, what I imagine a Long John Silvers to smell like (since I obviously haven’t been to one).
I cannot relate to your fried seafood problems.
I was hoping they’d be a gateway to seafood for me! Nope.
Hi Lady! They should NOT smell bad. They should have a faint smell of the ocean/water life.
That’s what I thought! I’ve had seared scallops before and lived to tell about it, so I thought this would be okay. Homeboy at Whole Foods tried to poison me, obviously.
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