Favorite restaurants, favorite dishes. As a foodie, when I return to the same restaurant again and again, I should be navigating all over the menu, trying everything, sampling the specials and embracing menu shake-ups. I often do…and yet the traditionalist in me, drawn to rituals and repetition and the comfort of the familiar, also looks forward to revisiting the dishes I’ve loved in the past. And after a while they become a thing. A thing I can’t pass up no matter what else looks good. At an iconic restaurant on Cape Cod called the Impudent Oyster, the dish I absolutely must have is an appetizer called Devils on Horseback.
Since we only get to visit the Cape once a year, I knew I had to figure out how to recreate this favorite dish at home.
Devils on Horseback are a bit of a throwback. There’s nothing innovative about scallops wrapped bacon – at one time they were a fixture on cocktail party buffets. But these are not your tired, toothpick-stabbed canapes. These sweet, briny scallops with their salty bacon wrapper perch on a platform of toast points and wear a cloak of rich, tangy Lemon Butter Sauce. The tartness of the sauce wakes up the mild flavor of the scallops and cuts through the meatiness of the bacon, hitting your taste buds with a bright, citrusy punch.
By the way, this easy, versatile Lemon Butter Sauce will turn any seafood dish into something special. Try it in place of beurre blanc with Chilean Sea Bass, or over shrimp or lobster, sole, swordfish, cod, tilapia, or any other mild-flavored fish or shellfish.
At the restaurant, they serve five scallops as a large appetizer, which John and I always share. (After we each eat two, we politely squabble over the last one: “you have it” “no, you”. But John always lets me have it in the end. Why do restaurants insist on serving appetizers with odd numbers of bites when they know people are going to share??)
At home, I serve three scallops per person for an appetizer, or six as a main course for lunch or a light supper, with a salad alongside.
Prep tips, making this ahead, and what to do about leftovers:
- This is not a make-ahead dish. If you really want to prep ahead, you can partially roast the bacon and wrap it around the scallops up to a few hours in advance, then chill the Devils until needed. But everything else, from roasting the scallops to toasting the bread and making the lemon butter sauce, should be done just before serving.
- Don’t plan to keep leftovers of Devils on Horseback. The bacon will turn flabby once it cools and you’ll never get it crisp again without dramatically overcooking the scallops. Lemon Butter Sauce will separate when it cools, and it’s virtually impossible to get it to emulsify again when reheated.
To see this recipe as part of a spectacular summer seafood dinner menu, check out the post for Saturday July 10, 2021.
Devils on Horseback
Toast 4 slices of bread if you're serving 4 as an appetizer, or just 2 if you're making this for 2 people as a main.
Ingredients
- 12 slices of bacon
- 2 or 4 slices of soft white sandwich bread
- 12 sea scallops, each about 1¼ inches in diameter (about 8 ounces total)
- Toothpicks
- Lemon Butter Sauce (recipe follows)
- Minced parsley for garnish
Directions
- Step 1 Heat the oven to 400 degrees on the Roast setting if your oven has one, or on Bake if it doesn’t. Line one large baking sheet with foil and another paper towel.
- Step 2 Trim off about 1/3 of each bacon slice, to make pieces about 8 inches long. You’ll be using the long pieces to wrap the scallops, and the shorter pieces will be left over. Save them for another use, either uncooked, or cook them along with the scallops.
- Step 3 Arrange the bacon slices on the foil-lined baking sheet. Roast the bacon for 5 minutes, then use tongs to turn each piece over. Roast the other side for 5 minutes. The bacon will be partially cooked. Remove it to the paper towel-lined sheet to drain and cool, about 10 minutes. Leave the oven on, and set the foil-lined baking sheet aside with the melted bacon fat on it.
- Step 4 Toast the bread. Use a serrated knife to trim off the crust, then cut each slice diagonally into 2 triangles. Arrange 2 triangles on each of 4 small plates.
- Step 5 When the bacon is cool enough to handle, wrap one long piece of bacon around each scallop with the ends overlapping. Secure the bacon with a toothpick. Set the bacon-wrapped scallops on the baking sheet with the bacon fat. If you’re cooking the bacon scraps now, too, return them to the sheet, spacing them around the scallops.
- Step 6 Roast the scallops for 8 minutes, turning them over with tongs halfway through. (If you don’t have a roast setting, turn the oven to Broil for the last 2 minutes.)
- Step 7 While the scallops roast, make the Lemon Butter Sauce.
- Step 8 Remove the toothpicks from the bacon-wrapped scallops. Arrange 3 scallops on the toast points on each plate. (If you cooked the extra bacon, return it to the paper towel-lined sheet to drain, then store or use as you like.) Drizzle the Lemon Butter Sauce over the scallops and sprinkle with minced parsley.
Lemon Butter Sauce
There is no salt in this sauce. If you're pouring this over Devils on Horseback, the salt in the bacon is enough to flavor the dish. If you're using this sauce to top a different seafood dish, make sure the fish itself is well-seasoned.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon white wine
- 8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
- Heavy cream (optional)
Directions
- Step 1 Heat a small skillet over medium high heat. Add the lemon juice and wine, and simmer until the liquid is reduced to about 1 tablespoon (about 4 minutes.)
- Step 2 Lower the heat to medium low. Add one cube of the butter and whisk until the butter is melted. Keep adding the butter, one cube at a time, adding the next one just as the previous one is melted. Whisk continually until all the butter is added and the sauce is thick and smooth, with the consistency of melted ice cream. Incorporating all the butter should take about 4 minutes.
- Step 3 Remove the pan from the heat. The sauce will hold for a few minutes in the warm pan off the heat, but should not be allowed to cool. If you need to hold it for more than a few minutes, keep the pan over very low heat and whisk frequently to keep the sauce from breaking. If it should start to break, whisking in a small splash of heavy cream should bring it back together.
