Scallops with Coconut Jasmine Rice

My wonderful friend Rosie gave me the Top Chef cookbook for Christmas. I've flipped through the book about 20 times or so, but did not settle on a recipe to try until this past weekend. I was craving seafood, so Chuck and I decided to go with  scallops and this recipe created by Chef Joey Paulino from Season 3 of Top Chef.



I must be 100% honest. I personally was not "ga ga" over this dish. While yes, it was good (the scallops were perfect actually), I'm not used to flavors like coconut and mango. Chuck loves all things fruit, so he was much more fond of this dish than I. I recommend including a bit of the rice mixture and scallop in each bite, that technique really helped "make" the dish for me.

Ingredients
Scallops
Salt
Cayenne
2 cups coconut milk
1 cup jasmine rice
8 shitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
1 mango- peeled, pitted, and diced
1 tablespoon mint, chopped
1 tablespoon basil, chopped

Directions
1. Rinse scallops in cold water and dry in a paper towel. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

2. Set a dry saucepan to medium heat. Toast rice for 2 minutes.

3. Pour coconut milk into saucepan and stir with rice. Cover and bring to a slight boil, stirring frequently. Once mixture comes to a slight boil, turn heat down to medium-low and heat for approximately 15 minutes (the rice will start to soak up the coconut milk).

4. When rice is almost done cooking, heat peanut oil in a saute pan over medium-high heat.

5. Remove the rice from the heat, stir in mango, mushroom, mint and basil.

6. Sear scallops in the saute pan, approximately 1.5 minutes on each side.

6. To serve, place the scallops on a bed of rice and garnish with mint and basil.