My local Japanese Steakhouse (conveniently called Japanese Steakhouse) makes this wonderful stuff that they call Sakura Sauce. It’s like a very stiff, almost buttery-tasting mayonnaise, very yellow in color, that they spoon over scallops on the hibachi, put a cover on them, and cook for a few minutes. It ends up creamy and browned around the edges, and is salty and delicious.
Finding recipes for it is difficult. First off, while this place calls it Sakura Sauce, other places use that name in reference to a white runny mayo-like dip, rather than something the seafood is actually cooked in. About the closest I’ve found is googling “Egg Yolk sauce,” and that gets me a good starting point–I’ve made it by combining commercial mayo with more egg yolks and some white miso and a couple of splashes of soy, and it’s close, but just doesn’t have the right flavor–it’s a touch too sweet. I also have trouble getting it to cook without curdling a bit. I’m terrible at making my own mayonnaise (which might require its own separate thread), but I’m getting a stick blender in two days, so hopefully any recipe I get that requires making my own mayo might actually be possible.
Does this stuff have an actual name that I can use for googling, or do any of you have a recipe for it?
Well, I don’t know exactly what you’re talking about, but two buttery mayo-y kind of sauces that go well with scallops are Hollandaise and Beurre Blanc. In fact, I do a beurre blanc just about every time I do scallops, it’s a great accompaniment.
You could easily do either one with Japanese flavors by adding miso and soy.
The one thing that’s hard to place is that neither of these sauces stand up to high heat well - they’ll both break. So I could be totally off on that, but so will any yolk-based sauce, so
Maybe if you made a veloute sauce into an allemande sauce, incorporated a bit of mayonnaise into that yet again, and played with some Japanese flavors- maybe a bit of Japanese mayo, miso, or yuzu one could make a killer sakura sauce. But that’s probably also not what you are looking for, either.
Can you explain the end product a bit better? Is the scallop still "encased " in the sauce when it is finished… is the scallop covered in a gelatinous layer of sauce that is “creamy and browned around the edges and salty” sort of “augratin style”, or is that a description of the bare finished scallop? Maybe this mysterious “sauce” is just a fortified or compound butter?
The scallops are encased in the sauce. What they do is cook the scallops on one side, flip them, then slather this thick sauce on top, sprinkle with clear liquid (probably water, maybe sake), then pop a lid over it and let it cook covered for a few minutes. The sauce is warm and creamy on the top, and browned with almost crispy edges around the bottom.
I’ll Google what you suggested and see what they are.
At the Asian buffet restaurant I go to, they put mayonnaise mixed with a little mustard on top of the oysters, mussels, scallops, fish fillets, and other seafood dishes, and roast/broil them for a little bit until the mayo is slightly browned around the edges. It doesn’t break down at all. The consistency is a little bit stiff but still creamy.
Are you sure that there’s mayonnaise in the sauce? While I don’t know the name for the sauce, I think I know what you’re talking about. I’ve made similar sauces before and none of them have included commercial mayo. That doesn’t mean that yours didn’t include the mayo, but it’s worth a try. It does sound like the commercial mayo is adding the extra sweetness to your sauce.
From your descriptions, it sounds very similar to this recipe (substituting scallops for daikon).
On second glance, the second recipe includes vegetable oil and looks like a Japanese style mayonnaise recipe. In that case, I’d probably say the inclusion of the commercial mayo is probably the culprit in your overly-sweet sauce.
Nothing terribly useful to contribute, but I know exactly the dish the OP is referring to – the local teppanyaki calls it “Golden Scallops.” Thick, salty, mayo-ish sauce that encases the scallops and is color that would suggest a 50/50 mix of mayo and yellow mustard.
No guesses at ingredients, although I recall my wife thinking there was a hint of mustard.
I’ve seen that second recipe, Tako, and I think it’s pretty close to what I’ve actually made myself, but the comments make it sound like it’s not quite right. For one, there’s no way that what I’ve seen in restaurants would work if you put it in a squeeze bottle.
The daikon recipe isn’t right–too dark in color, and the recipe I’m looking for contains no sugar at all.
I’ve heard that other places call it “Golden scallops,” but I’ve not found much from Googling that phrase other than menus and recipes for other types of scallops that mention “Cook until golden brown.”
Nope, that’s one of the ones for the dip I referred to in my OP, which is what makes the googling so difficult.
Wish me luck–I got my stick blender, so I’m going to try to make a non-sweet mayo to use as the base rather than the commercial mayo I’d tried the last two times. I just suck at making mayo.
Did you try using a commercial Japanese mayo (like Kewpie) when you got your almost right recipe? Because it’s a way eggier/less sweet version of American mayo in my opinion. It comes in a squeeze bottle.
Okay. So the one tonight is about as close as I’ve come.
1 cup mayonnaise (I use safflower mayonnaise because I try to avoid canola oil)
4 egg yolks
1.5 tbsp white miso
about 2 tsp of sesame oil and 1 tsp soy sauce
Combine all that in a food processor. Put it in a bowl in the fridge until it firms back up.
Pan-sear 2 pounds of scallops on one side. You’ll be doing this in batches, so when they’re done put them on a plate, then reduce the heat to medium-low and put them all back into the pan when they’re all seared, making sure that the seared side is up. Spoon the sauce on top of the scallops, and put a lid on the skillet. Cook over medium-low heat for five minutes, until the sauce starts to brown around the edges.
I’ve never heard of motoyaki, but some digging in Japanese suggests that it’s made from egg yolks, sugar, miso, salt, and oil. Not many hits for it Japanese, though, so it may be a regional thing.
If that’s the baked green mussels dish, then they also mix some roe into the sauce (or sprinkle on top) and serve with a twist of lemon that you’re supposed to squeeze on top.
It is ridiculously easy to make-those green mussels on the half shell are cheap at the chinese grocery stores and I easily found “that baked mussel Japanese dish” on the internet and made it for my brother-in-law’s birthday dinner last year with teppenyaki style food. I also added some sriracha to the sauce, and used Kewpie mayo.
Athena: see, I just don’t taste the sugar in it! But like I said, anytime I’ve used it it’s been lovingly mixed with copious amounts of sriracha, togorashi, sesame oil and such for spicy tuna and spicy baked mussels. As a family we’re physically unable to put food in our mouths unless it’s been thoroughly chillified, though we’ve been making a kindly exception for my brother-in-law.
