- 1/2 cup thinly sliced white onion
- 1 cup fresh orange juice
- 1 cup fresh lime juice
- 1 fresh jalapeño chile, sliced, including seeds
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt
- 24 medium sea scallops (1 1/4 pound), tough muscles removed from sides if necessary and scallops halved horizontally
- 6 ounce black (squid ink) angel’s hair pasta
- 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
- About 1 cup olive or vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup minced white onion
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh tomatillos
- 1/2 cup finely chopped tomato
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh jalapeño chile, including seeds
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- Combine onion, juices, jalapeño, and salt in a bowl.
- Poach scallops in 4 quarts of simmering salted water, stirring occasionally, until just cooked through (scallops should be opaque with centers slightly pink), about 1 minute. Drain scallops and gently toss with marinade. Marinate scallops, covered and chilled, 3 hours.
- Boil pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until just cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes. Reserve 1 cup cooking water, then drain pasta in a colander. Rinse briefly under cold running water to stop cooking (don’t cool pasta completely) and drain well. Toss pasta with extra-virgin olive oil.
- Heat 1/4 inch olive or vegetable oil in a 10-inch nonstick skillet over moderate heat until hot but not smoking. Form cakes by dropping a few strands of loosely squiggled pasta into a 1-tablespoon measure to fill it and inverting tablespoon into oil, flattening cake slightly if necessary. (If strands in bowl become too sticky to handle, stir in a little reserved pasta water, 1 teaspoon at a time. You need some starch from pasta to hold cake together, but you don’t want strands to become wet.) Cook cakes, 4 at a time, until crisp, 45 seconds to 1 minute per side, and drain on paper towels. Season cakes with salt.
- Soak onion in cold water to cover 20 minutes, then drain and rinse well. Stir together onion, cilantro, tomatillos, tomato, jalapeño, and salt and chill, covered, until ready to use.
- Lift scallops out of marinade and put 1 on top of each pasta cake. Top with salsa and serve immediately.