How to wash scallops more cleanly

The scallops you buy cannot be cooked immediately. You must make sure to clean them properly. However, for many people, cleaning scallops is difficult, so you need to pay attention to some methods and cleaning techniques.

1. When selecting scallops, those with tightly closed shells are generally live scallops, not to mention those with open shells that tighten immediately when touched by hand. On the contrary, if the shell is wide open and there is no reaction when you touch it, it is naturally dead.

2. After buying fresh scallops, you should first rinse the mud and sand on the shells with clean water.

3. Use a small knife, a Western-style table knife is recommended. Insert the knife into the shell and split it in two, while also cutting the flesh inside the shell. At this point you will see flesh on both sides of the shell.

4. Use the dinner knife again, follow the bottom of the shell and completely remove the shell meat. In this step, the knife must be kept close to the bottom of the shell to remove the complete shell meat.

5. Separate the shellfish meat from the shellfish. We start by cleaning the shellfish meat and use a knife to remove the internal organs of the shellfish meat, which is the black-looking stuff. Then place the whole shellfish meat in a large bowl. Add a little bit of salt, soak it in salt water for two or three minutes, and rotate the shellfish meat clockwise with chopsticks. The purpose of this is to make the mud and sand on the surface of the shellfish meat sink to the bottom of the bowl.

6. Take out the shellfish meat, pour out the water in the large bowl, put an appropriate amount of cornstarch in the bowl, then put the shellfish meat into the bowl, and gently rub the shellfish meat with your hands. In this way, the cornstarch will completely remove the remaining mud and sand in the shellfish meat. Finally, wash it again with clean water and the shellfish meat is processed.

7. If you are making vermicelli with garlic or steamed scallops with black bean sauce, we also need shells as a base, so we can use a fine-bristled brush or a toothbrush to thoroughly brush off the mud and sand on the shells.

In order to prevent the sand spit out by the shellfish from being sucked back into the shellfish, you can put the shellfish in a strainer basket when soaking them, and then place the strainer basket on the basin, keeping the strainer basket four or five centimeters away. In this way, the sand spit out by the shellfish will sink to the bottom of the basin and will not be sucked back by the shellfish.