Sweet on scallops

Local diners are in a prime position to sample the meaty mollusks

Rialto Restaurant in Cambridge serves seared scallops with a potato cake, hazelnuts, and cider cream. (Globe Photo / Aram Boghosian)

Scallops are sweet and clean and easy on the cook. They're perfect right out of the shell. Pop one in your mouth like a piece of Hubba Bubba and you barely need to chew.

When diners are dressed up and paying handsomely, scallops are considerably more elaborate. Menus around town often feature these briny prizes, which are as good in this region as you'll find anywhere. The white rounds are really the tender and meaty muscles these mollusks use to open and close the shells. Sometimes the overpoweringly sweet taste of the scallop is balanced by the briny, minerally, and gamier roe. In the market, small cork-shaped scallops are called bays and they're about the size of nickels. Sea scallops are bigger and blander, but still succulent if fished off our coast. Some upscale menus offer local scallops right in their shells - and if the roe is nestled beside them, this makes a fine presentation. But most chefs know that their patrons like the rounds of sweet meat on their own, sauteed in plenty of butter.

In Duxbury, right across the bay from Provincetown, business partners John Brawley, Shore Gregory, and Skip Bennett are growing bays and selling them alive and in their shells under the label Island Creek Oysters. Scallops are grown in cold, clean water with strong currents and plenty of food. In May and June the Island Creek guys drop the seedlings in mesh sacks and set them out in the fertile summer water. From late fall until February they gather scallops in the early mornings, rushing them off to restaurants.

They work quickly because scallops don't last long once they're out of salt water. Their symmetrically ridged armor does not seal tightly like that of their bivalve brethren, and requires much more energy to hold shut. An oyster stored somewhere cold, cup side down, can stay alive for weeks. A scallop may last a couple of days.

At Toro in the South End, when you order Island Creek scallops, the tiny rounds have been sauteed in their shells and are served with lemon and olive oil. Inside the shell the white muscle is wrapped in its roe and bathed in nectar. Bennett says that the taste is "so rich and oceany and so sweet that you can only eat a few. A dozen would be a nice appetizer."

Shucked or not, scallops are probably most appealing in small doses. Bay scallops are the sweetest of all. They're harvested in the shallow eelgrass beds off the coasts of Cape Cod and the islands. Most will come to the market shucked and cork-shaped, easy to confuse with the less flavorful, warmer water Calico scallops harvested off North Carolina and Florida, or the previously frozen, farm-raised bay variety from China. Local bays are a seasonal delicacy with a steep price (about $25 a pound).

At his Waltham restaurant Il Capriccio, chef and owner Rich Barron makes a leek risotto topped with just a few barely seared bay scallops. "If it comes out right, the risotto is pale green and the scallops are seared golden and beautiful with some fried leeks on top," says the chef. "We look forward to the little guys all year long."

The larger sea scallops are cheaper than bays (they retail for about $14 a pound). The best sea scallops are harvested from local waters - either plucked off underwater rocks by divers or scooped up by draggers. Shucked, they range in color from translucent ivory to cream to caramel-y orange, depending on their food source. Pure white scallops have probably been soaked in phosphates to prolong life and add weight. Those don't taste like much and shrink in a hot pan.

Jody Adams sears the real thing and serves them on a potato cake with toasted hazelnuts and apple cider reduced in the pan and then enriched with creme fraiche. "People love scallops, any scallops," says the chef and owner of Rialto in Cambridge. "I love scallops."

At home, Adams prefers classic preparations such as scallops wrapped in bacon and grilled. "Mad good," according to her 11-year-old daughter.

Bacon-wrapped scallops make the popular dish "angels on horseback" (you can also use oysters). But like lamb chops on the bone or oysters on the half shell, there is some pleasure to seeing scallops just the way they came out of the sea. To that end, the cooks at Jumbo Seafood in Newton steam scallops in their shells and serve them with leeks and ginger. They're totally pretty, but dry. Unless the scallop is cooked within its hinged cave, and served roe and all, the shell is all for looks.

At one time, all chefs served scallops in the shell. Classic dishes like the French coquilles St. Jacques - scallops in white sauce, sometimes with a ruffle of mashed potato around the edges of the shell - are now considered dated. At Aujourd'hui in the Four Seasons Hotel, chef William Kovel thinks that scallops on the shell is "redundant and too '80s." Right now he's serving Nantucket bay scallops ceviche-style with kaffir lime zest and a Meyer lemon puree. "When we get the scallops in," he says, "they're still pulsing."

Outside of high-end restaurants, diners prefer shucked scallops. "All people want is the meat, not all that other stuff," says Kim Marden, owner of Captain Marden's Seafoods in Wellesley, a retail and wholesale market. At home, the fishmonger dips scallops in milk, breads them in crumbs, and fries them in deep fat.

"It's hands-down the best way," he says. "My kids say it's like eating candy. Sweet as candy."

Aujourd'hui, Four Seasons Hotel, 200 Boylston St., 617-351-2037.

Jumbo Seafood, 10 Langley Road, Newton, 617-332-3600; 5-9 Hudson St., 617-542-2823.

Rialto Restaurant, Charles Hotel, One Bennett St., Cambridge, 617-661-5050.

Toro, 1704 Washington St., 617-536-4300.