Meat wrapped in meat.

Seriously, dieting is a ridiculously frustrating thing. There's nothing like the phrase "low-carb" to make me want cupcakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I am being pretty good though, mostly because I am facing two trips in two months, and I want to lose enough weight that it won't matter if I gain ten pounds eating my way through two of the biggest food-centric cities in the US.

In any case, the Atkins website has some pretty interesting stuff on it these days- they've asked some chefs to come up with great low-carb recipes, chefs such as Mike Isabella from Top Chef, Simpson Wong of Cafe Asean in New York, and Courtney Thorne-Smith from... hmm... Melrose Place.** But this one caught my eye and I have to say, 50% of it was fantastic! The other 50% was bitter and gross (apparently, radicchio gets even more bitter when you cook it) so we are just going to share these lovely sea scallops wrapped in one of my favorite things... prosciutto!

 How did I manage to make something as exciting as prosciutto
look this boring? I would have taken more photos, but I ate all
of the rest of it. Oops.

Prosciutto Wrapped Sea Scallops with Tomato Coulis
from here

Ingredients

• 1 plum tomato
• 1 very small yellow onion
• 3 ounces extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• Salt and ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 8 very large sea scallops (about 1 pound)
• 8 pieces prosciutto, sliced thin

Cut tomato in half and the onion in quarters and cover with about a tablespoon of the olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Place on a baking dish and roast in a 400 degree oven until tomato skin is slightly browned. Set aside and cool, then blend (I used a hand blender) with the tablespoon of vinegar until mostly smooth. Slowly add 1/4 cup of the olive oil and continue blending until it comes together (just a few seconds- try not to blend the olive oil for very long.) Set coulis aside.

Rinse scallops, pat dry with a paper towel and season with salt and pepper. Wrap a piece of prosciutto around each scallop. Heat heavy saute pan on medium heat and add remaining olive oil. Carefully place each wrapped scallop in pan (with one bare side of the scallop touching the pan, not the prosciutto) and cook for about 8 minutes total, turning only once!

Transfer scallops to plate and drizzle with the tomato coulis.

This was quite a lovely dish- the sweet, slightly briny scallops offset the salty prosciutto nicely, and the tomato coulis added a wonderful tangy counterpoint to the whole thing. I would serve this again, perhaps with some steamed green beans, spinach, or basically anything but that sauteed radicchio!

 

 

 

Later this week- panna cotta, Atkins-style!

** I know that she's been an Atkins spokesperson for a long time, but you have to admit she seems a bit out of place here...