Our crew of friends loves food and loves to cook.  A lot of what we do socially revolves around a meal of some sort, be it potlucks or restaurant club meetings.  So with it being Taylor’s birthday this past Monday, he decided what better way to celebrate than a potluck with a bunch of good food.  What transpired was fairly typical, all delicious and loads of fun.  I have become a great fan of potlucks and recommend hosting them to anyone who loves to cook and talk food!

So the obvious question on my mind was what to make and bring.  I’ll be honest, I’m a fan of small plates or appetizers – one biters.  If I’m hosting the potluck, then I’ll usually opt for doing a protein or some sort of more of a main dish type of thing.  But I was going over to a friends, so I decided to do an app instead.

Having still a ton of garlic from a recent visit to Costco, I whipped up a bunch of roasted garlic paste the night before and decided to integrate it into the dish: scallops wrapped with prosciutto with the garlic paste and a little basil.  Pretty simple recipe actually:

• 12 or so scallops – I halved them because I was serving apps…up to you what to do
• 6-8 thin slices of prosciutto
• 4-5 large basic leaves, julianned
• 1/2 c. roasted garlic paste

Pretty simple assembly: Take 1/4 of a slice of prosciutto (use a sharp knife to cut it), smear a little of the garlic paste on it, add a little piece of basil, and wrap it around a scallop like a burrito.  If you see a little of the scallop hanging out, that’s fine, but you want to make sure the pieces of prosciutto are long enough to wrap around the whole scallop.  Then, in a hot pan, add a little oil and sear them on both sides for a few minutes, but try not to overcook.  Once the prosciutto becomes a little crispy, they should be done.

–

So the scallops were served with a whole bunch of other dishes for starters, and then we hit up the main courses: braised cabbage (recipe coming soon), Johnny’s spicy jambalaya, Amanda’s stuffed bread (which got eaten so fast I missed out on a piece, grumble, grumble), Tim’s BBQ steak tips (amazing) and most impressively: Matt’s whole roasted stripped bass – a local fish and favorite.

This thing came out so delicious, I’m still thinking about it today.  It was well seasoned and surrounded by root and other vegetables that did well by gaining some of the fish’s flavor in the pan.  I was lucky enough to grab a cheek of the fish, which was succulent and delicious.  The whole thing was great and made for a really fun and interesting presentation.  I’ve never actually roasted a whole fish like this.  I cooked trout after catching them on the grill, but this bass was about 4 times the size of your average rainbow trout.  Just one of those great presentations and cooking methods that ensured the fish stayed moist.

Another great idea was the BBQ steak tips, which were really good to me, as I don’t eat steak much, but these were cooked perfectly – on the medium rare side, which I enjoy and that awesome BBQ sauce crusty char that you get from the grill.  Johnny Mac made some really good and spicy jambalaya, which had chicken and sausage and some good slow heat to it.  Tomato based rice with lots of good spices are always good in my book and this didn’t dissapoint.  Awesome meal and great potluck overall.