This recipe for pan seared scallops with bacon fennel cream sauce makes an ideal dinner party idea that doesn’t take much time at all. If you prep all your ingredients beforehand and have them at the ready beside the stove, the cooking time should really be about 15 minutes. The creamy fennel flavoured sauce is delicious with the sweet succulent scallops with the bacon cutting the richness just a little with its smoky saltiness.
Ingredients
- 24 large scallops
- 2 cloves garlic - finely chopped
- 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup whipping cream
- ½ cup seafood stock - or chicken stock
- ¼ cup white wine
- ¼ pound low sodium bacon - crisp cooked (about 6 slices)
- ⅔ cup fennel - finely chopped (if fresh fennel is not available you can substitute ½ tsp ground fennel seed)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- pepper - to taste
- 12 ounces fresh fettuccine pasta
Instructions
- Chop the bacon into small pieces and cook until crisp in a large non stick sauté pan.
- Drain the fat and discard. Set the bacon aside.
- Add the garlic and fennel to the pan and sauté until the fennel begins to soften; just a couple of minutes.
- Add the stock and wine and reduce the volume of the liquid to about half.
- Add the whipping cream and simmer slowly for a couple of minutes.
- Add the bacon and season with salt and pepper.
- Toss the cooked pasta in the prepared sauce.
- In a separate heavy bottomed sauté pan heat olive oil until very hot on medium-high heat.
- Lightly salt and pepper the scallops and sear them in the hot pan for only about 2 minutes per side. Sear the scallops a few at a time and don’t crowd the pan.
- Serve the scallops over the fettuccine and sauce.
- Garnish with chopped fennel fronds and bacon.