Scallop Cups

Here is a fun little appetiser any seafood fan will love. And they are very simple to make. This is a recipe from my favorite cook/friend Cynthia. She will have a cookbook published some day, and share her YUMMY YUMMY recipes with the rest of the world... but until then I will raid her recipe box (as much as she will let me ;-).

Mmmm Scallops. I love these little guys. For this recipe you will need to start with bout a 1/2lb of bay scallops and some Extra Virgin Olive Oil for the skillet.

Heat the EVOO in the cast iron skillet on medium-high heat. Toss in the scallops, and spread them out a bit to allow for even cooking. Saute the bay scallops until the color becomes more solid (less opaque) about 4 to 6 minutes. While they are sauteing you can prep the "cups"

These "scoops" are perfect. You will need about 20 scoops, try to find the non-broken ones.


Place the cups on a plate.


Grab your 3 or 4 or 2 cheese Mexican style shredded cheese. Mmmmmm Cheeeeeese.


Sprinkle the cheese in to the bottom of the cups.

Now, you can bake this a bit to melt and crisp the cheese. This will also help prevent the other fillings from saturating the chip and making it soggy. But we had a lot of cooking planned this night so we skipped that step.

Grab your salsa, we used store bought because we were planning on making other salsa for the rest of the meal and figured this would save some time. For this salsa you do not want to choose a CHUNKY salsa, remember you have to fit this in the cups and all the other ingredents. So regular salsa will work.

Scoop a small dollop of salsa in to each cup on top of the cheese (Mmmm cheese)


Fill every cup. How cute !

Now crab some guacamole.... And here were were more concerned with time and the other 3 parts of the nights meal to bother with making this from scratch, but if you know how and prefer to, then go right a head :-) Just remember you do not want your guacamole chunky.

Now check on the Scallops... don't for get those little guys.... They are starting to look perfect... So turn down the heat when they look like this.

Continue filling the cups....

How "Christmas-y" and OH so yummy ! Now be strong... even though it is VERY tempting to eat these at this stage, you only have one more step to go, you can do it, hold strong!

Random trying to be artistic... shot....


Now top each cup with 3 to 4 scallops....


And enjoy !


How cute are these little guys !


They are very yummy! I say go run and make them now... you know you want to!

Scallop Cups
15 - 20 Tostitio cups
1/2 lb Bay Scallops
Extra Virgin Olive oil for the cast iron skillet
2 -3 T Mexican cheese shredded
2 -3 T salsa
2 -3 T guacamole