ON FOOD: Recipe is good start on Akasaka's Butteryaki

When Akasaka Japanese Restaurant, 4737 N. Academy Blvd., closed a few months ago, my monthly lunch bunch moaned our disappointment in unison. Akasaka was one of our regular go-to places for a sizzling skillet of scallop Butteryaki.

The sauce ingredients should be blended in a food processor. Heat a skillet over high heat and add 4 tablespoons of butter. Dredge six sea scallops in flour and saute in the butter. Add 3-4 tablespoons of the sauce to the pan and heat until the sauce starts to caramelize. Serve immediately.My lunch partners, all being reasonably good cooks, had theorized about what might be in the secret sauce. I figured there was mayonnaise in it, but I couldn't put my finger on what the other ingredients might be.Even better, owner Song Brinck was more than happy to give me the recipe on my first request - and she invited me to join her in the kitchen to watch her prepare the dish so I could see all the details and nuances of the recipes. I reached for my Flip Video camera to record the process. Visit gazette.com to see the video.Then, in December, when I dropped by Kura Japanese Restaurant, 3478 Research Parkway, for Wednesday Ladies Night Out, I was shocked to see Sea Scallop Butter Yaki (pan-seared scallops with butter sauce) on the menu. Of course, I ordered the appetizer and was pleasantly surprised to find it tasted almost as good as my gold standard at Akasaka.There is still a missing ingredient that separates this dish from the most memorable Akasaka version. But, what the heck, it's just another reason to dig out the cute cast iron plate and start adding Asian ingredients to the basic sauce until I hit on the right combination.One final note: Use sea scallops that are size 10-20, which means there will be 10 to 20 large scallops per pound. I found the best price at Asian Pacific Market, 615 Wooten Road. Look in the frozen fish area. They were $6.99 for a tray of 14 large scallops.I've prepared the recipe a couple of times and find it gets the job done of having a tasty scallop appetizer.If you have a cast iron plate, heat it as the scallops are being sauteed. When the scallops are browned, place them on the hot plate and add the sauce.Reach Farney at 636-0271. Hear her "KVOR Table Talk" radio show noon to 1 p.m. Saturdays on 740 AM.For your reference, the scallop Butteryaki appetizer consisted of six seared sea scallops served on a very hot cast iron plate. The dish is hard to perfect because the scallops continue to cook as they are served, but the kitchen at Akasaka had it down to a science. Coming off the hot iron, the scallops had a salty crust on the outside and a sweet, tender interior.The sauce recipe, as my friends and I had always guessed, was pretty simple: 1 cup mayo, 1/4 cup chopped onion, 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds, 2 tablespoons white Karo syrup, a pinch of salt and 1 tablespoon soy sauce.And that was our biggest regret when the eatery shuttered its windows - we would never again get to eat this amazing dish.-Once, on a shopping trip to Asian stores in Denver, I had spotted a stack of the cast iron serving dishes, like the ones they used at Akasaka. I snapped one up for future testing of the recipe. But all my home attempts were doomed to failure.

Reach Farney at 636-0271. Hear her "KVOR Table Talk" radio show noon to 1 p.m. Saturdays on 740 AM.