Scal­lops Three Ways: and one triumph

Well, Fri­day night saw us sans Fifi as she went swan­ning off to see “Much Ado About Noth­ing” with Juli­a’s fam­i­ly so, nat­u­ral­ly I took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cook some­thing she does­n’t like. Now I know, nor­mal women would take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to go OUT to din­ner, but hon­est­ly, restau­rant prices are so astro­nom­i­cal in this adopt­ed town of mine that it’s a bit of a buz­zkill, frankly, get­ting the bill. Where­as for around 25 pounds for even the most expen­sive ingre­di­ents, I can cook some­thing real­ly deli­cious, and any­way it’s fun to exper­i­ment. I must say, how­ev­er, that the things she does­n’t like are dwin­dling to pret­ty much: seafood. No shrimp, no crab­meat, no scal­lops or lob­ster or mus­sels. Which lim­its the choic­es. That being said…

I’d had my gen­tle man­date from my beloved about his wish for “scal­lops three ways,” and where­as two of the ways were old, tried and true ways I led you to at the end of my last post (with a creme fraiche and sin­gle malt Scotch sauce, and the ever-deli­cious Coquilles Saint Jacques Grati­nee), I decid­ed to go all out on the third and try to recre­ate the fab­u­lous starter at my new favourite restau­rant, Angelus near Avery’s sta­ble. The lunch we had there the day we got her school results will go down in my mem­o­ry as one of the most deli­cious and cel­e­bra­to­ry meals ever. Yum yum. And you know what? My attempt was more than suc­cess­ful! I added beet­root because I love it. And it was all a love­ly com­bi­na­tion, plus I had a real­ly play­ful time get­ting the pre­sen­ta­tion just right, and mak­ing it real­ly pret­ty. I wish I had tak­en a pho­to but I did not. Next time!

Warm Scal­lop Sal­ad with Beet­root and Char­lotte Potatoes
(serves two as a starter)

1 tbsp gen­tle-flavoured oil (not olive)
6 extra-large king scal­lops, roe removed
2 large beet­roots, roast­ed and peeled
2–3 Char­lotte pota­toes, peeled and steamed
2 hand­fuls fresh rocket

dress­ing for rock­et: (shake this up in a jar)
3 parts olive oil to 1 part white wine vinegar
dash lemon juice
salt and fresh pepper

sauce for scal­lops: (you can whisk this in a teacup)
2 tbsps but­ter, melted
good pinch Alep­po pep­per flakes

hand­ful chives, snipped

Get a heavy skil­let very hot and add the oil. When the oil is hot, place the scal­lops in care­ful­ly. Let cook until browned on one side (about 2 min­utes) then turn care­ful­ly and brown the oth­er side for 2 min­utes. Remove from skil­let to a wait­ing cut­ting board and slice them each in half from side to side (not from top to bot­tom, if that makes sense). Now for the assembly.

If you are lucky enough to have a lit­tle met­al ring about the size of a scal­lop, get it out of that draw­er where you threw it and wash it. Then press it down on the peeled beet­roots and peeled pota­toes to make cylin­ders of them (you can save the rest of the beets and pota­toes, cut them up and toss them with a lit­tle dress­ing for a sal­ad next day). Slice the cylin­ders of beet­root and pota­to until you have 12 slices of each. Divide up all your sliced things between the two plates. Now, you can choose: either stack them on top of each oth­er in four piles, or lay­er them around the edge of a white plate. Then place a hand­ful of dressed rock­et in the cen­ter of each plate and driz­zle the melt­ed but­ter and Alep­po pep­per over the scal­lops, beets and pota­toes. Scat­ter the snipped chives over all and VOILA!

**************

I am a huge fan of this love­ly sal­ad now. It has every­thing: red, green, white, soft scal­lops, crunchy rock­et, refresh­ing beet, relax­ing pota­to. The pep­pery but­ter (or is it but­tery pep­per?) goes beau­ti­ful­ly with the sal­ad dress­ing, so every bite is a per­fect com­bi­na­tion of sweet, spicy gor­geous­ness. And did you know how good all these ingre­di­ents are for you? Well, you know beet­root is a super­food, and scal­lops them­selves are a dream as far as nutri­tion goes; low in all the bad stuff and high in the good.

Tomor­row I’ll tell you about the nice Indi­an chick­en dish I made last night, with mush­rooms and cashews and yogurt. But right now I have three filthy, cold, wet and hun­gry lit­tle eques­tri­ans in my sit­ting room demand­ing pop­corn. I must fly. Enjoy your Sunday!