Steamed Scallops with Garlic

Name: Steamed Scallops with Garlic
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: Scallops; Dried rice noodles; Garlic; Sunflower oil; Light soy sauce; Spring onions; Red chilli; Toasted sesame oil; Caster sugar

Steamed Scallops with Garlic, plated as one serving.

251 kcal a serving, against 384 for the traditional version. That is 133 kcal off, or 35%, with 18.1g of protein. Serves 4. 20 minutes.

What the traditional version is

Fresh scallops steamed on the half shell, resting on a bed of rehydrated rice vermicelli. The seafood is buried under a mountain of raw minced garlic and spring onions, then drowned in a heavy pour of smoking hot oil that cooks the aromatics directly on the plate and creates a rich, fatty sauce.

What changed, and what each change costs

80g of hot frying oil down to 15g, plus a drop of sesame oil

The seafood itself is basically pure protein and water. Every single gram of fat in the original dish comes from that final dramatic pour of oil. Cutting it right down clears away the grease and lets the sweet scallop juices shine. I add a tiny drop of sesame oil to make up for the lost richness.

What it costs you. You completely lose the aggressive, violent sizzle at the table. Without a massive slick of fat coating your tongue, the raw garlic tastes much sharper. What you've got is a very clean, sharp starter. A rich banquet centrepiece anymore is a different dish and you know where to find it.

Relying purely on soy sauce and scallop juices for the dressing

Often restaurants bulk out the sauce with extra sugar and oil to keep the noodles slick. I use a simple mix of soy sauce and a tiny pinch of sugar to dress the noodles, letting the natural cooking juices do the heavy lifting.

What it costs you. The noodles will dry out much faster on the plate. You've got to eat this immediately, which you should be doing with hot seafood anyway.

What goes in it

The ingredients, without the quantities. The weights are what the figures below are computed from, and they are in the book.

Scallops
Dried rice noodles
Garlic
Sunflower oil
Light soy sauce
Spring onions
Red chilli
Toasted sesame oil
Caster sugar

How it starts

Put the dried rice noodles in a heatproof bowl and cover them with boiling water.
Check your scallops thoroughly, removing the tough little muscle on the side if it's still attached.
Peel and finely mince the garlic.

The rest of the method, and every weight, is in Authentic-ish Chinese.

The numbers

Per serving	Traditional	Lightened
Calories	384	251
Protein	18.1g	18.1g
Fat	20.9g	5.9g
Saturated fat	2.3g	0.8g
Carbohydrate	30.4g	30.4g
Protein per 100 kcal	4.7g	7.2g

Every figure is computed from the recipe's own weighed ingredient list against public food composition databases. The appendix in Authentic-ish Chinese prints the exact database row used for each ingredient, so any number here can be checked. How every number is computed sets out the method.

Allergens. gluten, molluscs, sesame, soybeans.

The method is in the book

This dish is an easy win. Scallops are expensive, and drowning them in half a cup of cheap vegetable oil has always seemed like a crime to me. By stripping the fat right back, the sweet flavour of the shellfish actually comes forward. The garlic hit is completely uncompromising, and the rice noodles do a fantastic job of mopping up the soy dressing. You get a massive protein return for very few calories, and it still looks impressive enough to serve to guests. Just make sure you get the timings right, because cold steamed seafood is miserable.

The quantities and the method for this dish are in Authentic-ish Chinese, along with 55 more. Buy the paperback