The Saga of the Seared Scallops with Dragon Fruit Salsa (Disaster)

Dragon fruit looks cool, but it’s super boring. Think of it as kiwi’s boring cousin. I wanted to see if I could figure out how to liven it up. I like a good challenge, so why not? I saw a recipe on Food Network for seared scallops with dragon fruit salsa. The first red flag should have been that the photo had the dragon fruit salsa as a pink color, despite there not being anything pink in the ingredients list (dragon fruit is white inside). And I haven’t cooked scallops in a long time. We used to have them all the time when I was a kid, so I guess I need to call Mom for a refresher course, because that didn’t go well either.

I was cutting slits into a small onion so I could dice it for the rice pilaf I was making. I decided to use my sharpest knife, which happens to be a chef’s knife with a very pointy tip. You probably see where this is headed. Instead of cutting my slit halfway through the onion, I went all the way through and into my finger. Ouch! I washed it, threw a band-aid on it, and kept going (with a new onion and clean knife). I cut myself a second time when I was dicing the dragon fruit, this time on my thumb. Thankfully I still had the other half of the fruit. Tossed what I had, band-aid, clean knife, got back to work on the other half. I very rarely cut myself while cooking. Twice in one dinner that was barely started should have been a sign to just stop and order pizza!

Knowing that dragon fruit is boring, I thought I needed to liven it up with more than just the lemon juice and chives suggested in the recipe. At that point, it might as well just be scallops with lemon juice and chives because the dragon fruit really doesn’t add much. I added some honey. I think this would have actually been good if I’d patted the dragon fruit dry first. Maybe, but that’s still probably a stretch.

So then when it came to the scallops, I’m fairly certain my pan was too hot. They stuck and were overdone (rubbery). Sad face. The rice pilaf was decent, but needed more seasoning.

And now I’m drinking wine and eating a Pop Tart.