Chef critique
Scallops with Lemon-Brown Butter
This is an elegantly structured and well-timed recipe that relies on solid cooking techniques but requires seasoning corrections for the potato water and the scallops.
Score: 7/10
Suggested fixes
- Add 1 tablespoon Morton kosher salt to the potato water in Step 2.
- Reduce the Morton kosher salt stirred into the mashed potatoes in Step 6 from 1 teaspoon to 1/4 teaspoon, adjusting to taste.
- Increase the Morton kosher salt applied to the scallops in Step 7 from 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon.
- Update the overall Morton kosher salt quantity in the ingredient list to account for the added boiling water salt and the increased scallop seasoning.
Issues
- medium / flavor: The potato boiling water is unsalted, and seasoning the potatoes during the mashing stage does not properly season them from within. The water should be salted to 2% salinity.
- medium / flavor: The 1 lb of scallops is underseasoned with only 1/2 teaspoon Morton kosher salt (about 0.55% by weight). Based on the 1.25% guideline for boneless meat, they require about 1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons of Morton kosher salt.
Strengths
- Excellent separation of preparation tasks from active cooking steps
- Precise heat management and pulling temperature for the scallops
- Perfectly formatted bulleted list for tossing the Brussels sprouts
- Accurate division and tracking of split ingredients like butter, olive oil, and salt