The New York Times Magazine - USA (2022-02-12)

21

It took several

years for me

to recognize the

impact on my

life, on my palate

and, most of all,

on my cooking.

Seared Scallops With

Glazed Brussels Sprouts

Time: 25 minutes

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

½ teaspoon garlic powder

Kosher salt (Diamond Crystal) and

black pepper

4 slices bacon, sliced crosswise into thin,

short strips

When I watch those shows now, they

remind me of how much slower cooking

programs used to be, the antithesis of the

fl ashy antics of today’s YouTube videos

or the accelerated ephemera of TikTok. A

host would walk to the pantry, take out an

onion, cut the onion and peel the onion,

all in real time with minimal cuts; today’s

food videos and TV programs edit all that

out. D’Arabian says she is nostalgic for

the old kind of cooking show, which was

about teaching the audience to cook. ‘‘The

information is sort of still out there,’’ she

says. ‘‘What it’s not is a relaxing, paced,

22-minute show on a network.’’

For those moments when you want to

slow down, Madame Gabillet’s chicken

is a good place to start. I made it for the

fi rst time after watching d’Arabian’s big

‘‘Food Network Star’’ win years ago, but it

was the day I swapped the chicken breast

for trout, the lemons for limes and the

combination of white wine and chicken

broth for all white wine that I realized

the power of this pan sauce. Culinarily,

it set me free.

D’Arabian likes to joke that Madame

Gabillet’s chicken is less about the chick-

en and more about the process. It’s true

that you can use any protein. It could be

tofu or a piece of fi sh, or you could use a

vegetable — something that benefi ts from

the hard sear of a dry skillet, like brussels

sprouts. Ivory scallops gain an almost but-

terscotch-like crust when they are seared

in a hot pan, tasting like the sea slicked in

burned sugar.

The next bit is crucial, and the most

satisfying, not least because I get to say

the word ‘‘deglaze’’: Deglaze the pan.

Splash in some liquid and scrape up the

browned bits stuck on the bottom. Boil

the liquid until it reduces, then, off the

heat, stir in cold butter to create a velvety

emulsion — a pan sauce with verve, and

real cooking, too.

life, on my palate and, most of all, on my
cooking. ‘‘Food Network opened the door-
way,’’ d’Arabian says, ‘‘and made it wider
for people to come into the kitchen.’’ And
I came swinging through, dusted in fl our. I
even worked there years ago, though it was
in the editorial department of the website
— my fi rst food job out of college.
So many of the instincts I possess now
as a cook can be credited to shows that
ran in the late 1990s and early aughts. And
there were other kids like me. We were
Food Network Babies, a generation who
came home from school to watch cook-
ing programs before dinnertime. But if
I found my after-school culinary tutors
in Emeril Lagasse, Tyler Florence and
Rachael Ray, then late-night episodes of
‘‘Unwrapped’’ and ‘‘$40 a Day’’ were my
ritual before bed. By 13, I was lighting
baked alaskas on fi re because I had seen
Gale Gand do it on ‘‘Sweet Dreams.’’ (I can
still hear her closing tagline: ‘‘And remem-
ber, there’s always room for dessert.’’)
Food Network Babies were scattered
across the nation. Thy Ho-Pham, a 32-year-
old community health and wellness man-
ager in Houston, says hosts like Giada De
Laurentiis taught her to cook beyond her
parents’ Vietnamese food when she was a
kid in New Orleans. But ‘‘Iron Chef’’ was
the show that hooked her. One episode
of the English-dubbed Japanese compe-
tition show made her realize that people
ate squid beyond her immigrant family.
‘‘Squid was glamorized as a delicacy,’’ she
says, ‘‘whereas I remember my school
friends making disgusted faces when I
shared with them that I eat squid.’’
Andrea Solorzano, who is now a soft-
ware developer, was a 12-year-old in Hous-
ton when she watched a late-night episode
of ‘‘Good Eats’’ in which Alton Brown
walked through the science of making a
perfect omelet. The next morning, Solor-
zano made an omelet for her mother, using
everything she learned the night before
— her fi rst attempt at cooking. Growing
up in Los Angeles, Maximilíano Durón
loved watching Sunny Anderson because,
he says, at the time she was one of the only
people of color who had a show midafter-
noon. ‘‘Her interstate chili was one of the
fi rst recipes I ever tried to make myself,’’
says Durón, an editor at ARTnews, ‘‘and
it really taught me how to build fl avor.’’ A
complexly spiced chuck-and-chorizo chili,
the recipe calls for 26 ingredients. Durón
asked for a Dutch oven that Christmas.

1 tablespoon olive oil

8 large sea scallops (10-12 ounces),

preferably dry-packed

½ pound brussels sprouts, trimmed and

halved, larger ones quartered

3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter

3 tablespoon chopped chives, for

garnish (optional)

Crusty bread or steamed white rice,

for serving

1. In a small dish, stir together the lime
   juice, maple syrup, mustard, garlic powder and
   ½ teaspoon salt. Season with pepper.


2. Add the bacon and olive oil to a large,
   cold skillet. Turn the heat to medium-high, and
   cook, stirring occasionally, until the bacon
   is very crisp but not burned, 3-4 minutes.
   Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a
   paper towel-lined plate to drain, and carefully
   pour all but 2 tablespoons of the fat that’s
   in the pan into a heatproof dish or jar. Place
   the pan back on the heat.


3. Pat the scallops dry with a cloth or paper
   towel, and season with salt on all sides.
   Carefully place each scallop, flat side down,
   into the hot fat and cook, without touching,
   until nicely golden brown on the bottom, 2-3
   minutes. Flip, and cook briefly this time until
   very lightly golden, 30 seconds to 1 minute.
   Transfer to a plate.


4. Add the brussels sprouts to the hot pan,
   making sure each one is turned cut side down.
   Season with salt and pepper and cook, still
   over medium-high and without touching, until
   brown and slightly charred on that one side,
   2-3 minutes. Add more bacon fat as needed
   to keep the pan coated. Now gently shake
   the pan or stir with a spoon to stir-fry briefly,
   just a few seconds.


5. When the brussels sprouts are charred
   on the cut sides and bright green on
   the rounded sides, transfer them to the plate
   with the scallops. In the now-empty pan,
   add the lime-juice mixture, and cook, stirring
   constantly, over medium-high heat until
   it bubbles up and reduces by more than half
   and a spoon dragged through the pan
   leaves a naked trail in the lime glaze, 2-5
   minutes. It should look sticky like melted candy.


6. Remove the pan from the heat,
   and return the scallops to the pan, tossing
   in the butter as well. Stir until the butter
   is fully melted and incorporated into
   the lime glaze. This residual heat should
   also finish heating your scallops through.
   Add back the seared brussels sprouts
   and bacon, and gently toss in the glaze.
   Garnish with the chives.


7. Serve right from the pan if you’d like, with
   a side of crusty bread or bowls of rice.

Yield: 2 servings.