Before I set out to work through Le Cordon Bleu's cooking school curriculum, I would buy a box of frozen patty shells, or vol-au-vent, to make fancy appetizers for a special dinner. Now, I'm making puff pastry at home and finding satisfaction in seeing all those layers in something I created from flour, water and butter. Although my home versions aren't hexagonal and have a bit of a rustic look, they don't have the hydrogenated soybean and palm oils that are in the store-bought version either.

I haven't made puff pastry very often…actually only twice before. The technique came back to me as I worked with it, but I still need some practice to avoid the butter seeping through the layers. It really didn't take that much hands-on time either. In-between, while it rested in the refrigerator, I had enough time to check on Twitter, email and catch up a bit on reading blogs.

I grew up singing this nursery rhyme and skipping to "Blue bells, cockle shell; Easy ivy over" and never thought twice about the word "cockle", except to giggle a little. Coquille is French for "shell" and Coquille Saint Jacques is the name for "scallop shell" named after St. James. This week we're making Coquilles Saint Jacques Dieppoise.

Scallop Shells and the Camino of Santiago de Compostela
The scallop shell plays an important part on the Camino of Santiago de Compostela, a Christian pilgrimage to St. James' burial spot at Santiago de Compostela. The cockle shell is St. James's emblem, and you can read the history about it in this article. A friend walked the Camino a couple of years ago, and here are her thoughts on the scallop shell: Each line on the scallop shell represents the age of the scallop. As the bivalve gets older, it adds another layer to its outer shell, like the rings on a tree. When you walk the Camino, many stamps that you get for your Pilgrim's passport show a scallop shell too.

Cooking Scallops
When cooking scallops, it's better if they are slightly underdone since they can become rubbery when overcooked. I rarely order scallops when I'm out because I don't like the texture when they're overcooked. However, by cooking my scallops at home, I was able to cook them until they were just cooked through. My fork easily sliced into it, like soft butter, and it tasted like smooth custard.

Crème fraîche, Mussels, Shrimp and Mushrooms
On a foodie field trip last week, I did a crème fraîche happy dance. I've been looking for this hard-to-find ingredient since last year. I guess I just didn't know where to look. Although I've made my own, I wanted to compare it to store-bought (which I still have to do before the April 17 expiry date). I found crème fraîche at Nicastro's in the Ottawa Byward market. The crème fraîche adds a tanginess that would be missed in the sauce, so make your own or find it at your grocery store, if you can. (Nicastro's also has the best cannoli.)

My mussels are from Prince Edward Island and my shrimp flew in from China via Farm Boy and were on sale for $3.99 for 454 gram bag. My scallops are from Maine, so my meal was multi-national!

I visited another favorite food store in Ottawa last week called the Byward Fruit Market. They always have interesting fruit (and will even have cherimoya in a few weeks). I bought some fresh morel mushrooms to include in this dish.

Sauce
A la dieppoise means "sea fish garnished with crayfish tails and mussels, served with a white wine sauce". This dish can be made in one large sauté pan. After cooking each item, remove it with a slotted spoon and set aside. With each item that's cooked, the liquid builds more flavor.

Recipe: Coquilles Saint Jacques Dieppoise (Scallops with Mussels and Shrimp in Cream Sauce)

Serves: 6 (I halved the recipe.)

Ingredients:

You can find the recipe for Coquilles Saint Jacques Dieppoise (Scallops with Mussels and Shrimp in Cream Sauce) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home (affiliate link). To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Serve with a glass of a fruity Muscadet de Sevres et Maine, produced in the Loire area, or with a fresh Riesling from Alsace.

Tasting Notes
Through the grapevine, I had heard from other members in Whisk Wednesdays that they found this dish bland so I wasn't expecting to really like it. I was surprised and found the sauce to be rich and flavorful. I did add a splash more wine and bit of heavy cream so that I would have enough sauce for my meal. The crème fraîche was a key ingredient. Although the recipe lists heavy cream as a substitute, I would use sour cream if I didn't have crème fraîche. I'm also a sucker for anything with mushrooms, so this meal didn't disappoint at all.

This is a simple but tasty dish that will wow guests who love seafood. Plus it's economical. Serve with a crusty loaf of bread to soak up any remaining sauce on your plate.

For the next few weeks, we're learning about shellfish, snails and frog legs, and first up is frog legs. This, of course, reminded me of this video of the Muppets' Swedish Chef.

The French love frog legs, and it is a "lovable term for the French — the frogs," says Mort Rosenblum, founding editor of the quarterly magazine Dispatches. "They're kind of identified with it, because it's such a distinctive dish."

Frog Tastin' and Giggin'
It's hard to believe, but frog legs are in danger of being "eaten to extinction." Every year, eight to ten tons of frog legs are consumed, according to Taste France.

These days, French frog ranching is dead and commercial giggin' is illegal. You can catch frogs only during frog hunting season, which is 15 days per year and, after you catch them, you must eat them immediately. Otherwise, you may be fined €10,000 or worse, lose your vehicle. So bring a camp stove and frying pan along on your hunt.

If you can't hunt for your own frogs, then you have to import the critters. And if you want French frogs, you may have to resort to the black market…contraband grenouilles de pays. I asked my fishmonger where my frog legs came from, and he said Vietnam! According to this link, Bruno Stril, teaching chef at the Cordon Bleu school in Paris, France, is unsure where his suppliers source their frog legs. "I would like for them to come from France," he says. But he expects that most of the meat comes from other countries."

Frog Fair
A good majority of frog legs were eaten in one weekend at the world's largest frog fair. Since 1972 on the fourth weekend in April, Vittel, France held the Fête de Grenouilles hosted by The Brotherhood of Frog Thigh Tasters.