Ramen Crusted Scallop

Chef David Chang plays with ramen including crusting chicken and skate wing; we tried it on a scallop but weren't all that impressed.

We got a couple really nice scallops from a local fishmonger (at $30/pound, they better be -- that's $3 per scallop). 

The technique's pretty standard: dust, egg wash, crust.  Chang uses Wondra flour for the dusting and we used tapioca starch because we didn't want to develop any gluten chewiness that flour might have contributed. Then an egg wash using a quail egg since we only had one scallop here. Finally, we whizzed up the ramen with the flavor packet in a blender until it was the consistency of panko bread crumbs. 

Then a quick fry in hot butter (we used smoked butter, just because we had some :-) until golden. 

As always with scallops, don't over cook. The inside should be barely opaque, just turning from translucent.

Why wasn't this a huge success? The coating, instead of being crisp, was hard.  It was similar in texture to normal bread crumbs but lacked the shatter that you'd get from panko. Perhaps deep frying would have helped, since shallow skillet frying allowd the unheated sides to get soft, and it took longer than deep frying would. 

I'd probably try it again using a more standard kind of ramen -- these Thai noodles seemed to have a golden hue as if they were made from a different starch than normal. And deep fry it.