Scallops Spa Pasta

This is 1990s spa cooking at its smartest: a creamy-tasting linguine sauce built from fat-free cream cheese, white wine, and shallots instead of butter and heavy cream. Sea scallops get sliced into rounds and barely simmered in the sauce, asparagus tips bring color and snap, and fresh tarragon ties the whole dish together with its anise-like sweetness.

The technique trick is in the sauce. You build flavor from a poaching liquid (water, wine, shallots, asparagus stems, tarragon) reduced until concentrated, then puree it with a small amount of fat-free cream cheese to thicken it into something silky without actual cream. Strain it through cheesecloth to catch the asparagus fibers and you have a sauce with the body of cream and the brightness of wine, with almost no fat. The scallops cook in the sauce in well under a minute. Any longer and they turn rubbery. Time it carefully.

Pro Tips

• Use dry-pack scallops, not wet-pack. Wet-pack scallops are pumped with sodium tripolyphosphate to retain water and won’t sear or sauce properly.
• Slice scallops into thirds across the grain for the fastest, most even cook. Whole scallops at this gentle temperature go raw inside or rubbery outside.
• Don’t skip straining. The cooked asparagus stems leave fibers that grit the sauce.
• Chop the tarragon at the last minute. Like basil, it darkens fast once cut.

Variations

• Swap scallops for shrimp or chunks of cooked lobster for a richer dish.
• Use peas instead of asparagus when asparagus is out of season.
• Stir a tablespoon of grated lemon zest into the finished pasta for extra brightness.