HOW TO PREPARE A FRESH SCALLOP
Scallops are best when they are fresh and prepared directly from the living animal. Sounds quite nasty but it's simply the only way to have a good scallop on your plate. Preparing scallops is simple and you don't need much practice on that.
First, hold the scallop with the upper shell towards you.
Take a knife and insert it into the scallop from one side and make sliding cuts from one side to the other pressing your knife blade against the inside of the upper shell. This procedure will cut through the white adductor muscle of the scallop allowing you to open it. As an alternative way, you can insert a strong knife into the gap at one side of the scallop and twist the knife blade so that the shell opens up a bit. Then cut through the muscle as we just described. This last method can be difficult if the scallop is closed very tightly, although if you use a good knife it should be managable. You can buy special oyster knifes in special stores, and these are also good for opening scallop shells.
Once the scallop shell is lifted, open it up all the way so that you see the inside parts of the animal. There you can see the big white muscle in the middle (the one that you just cut through) that normally holds together or passively opens the shells. Around it is a quite big colored organ that chefs call coral, and some people like to eat it, although it is quite rubbery and pretty tasteless. This coral is actually nothing else than the scallop's own genitals (!), the orange part being the female ovary and the white part the male testicle, if one has to relate to us humans. Yes, scallops are double-gendered.
Once the shell is opened you need to remove the white muscle from the rest of the tissue. Here's the moment that most beginner's don't like to do. You need to slide your thumb in between the white muscle tissue and the rest of the tissue, as the muscle is somehow encapsuled in the animal. Just get in there with your thumb and follow all the way around the muscle so that you separate it from the surrounding body parts. Lastly, cut off the bottom of the muscle that is attached to the lower shell. Now quickly rinse the muscle in cold water, pat it dry, and there you have - a fresh scallop.
Now it is quite good to cut this white delicacy into two halves (horizontal cut) and when preparing, just season the scallop and fry it briefly, about 1 minute on each side, in a hot non-stick pan with olive oil, so that the surface is lightly browned and the scallop is cooked through (it should become opaque all the way through).