Scallops

My love for scallops goes beyond words, but I'll try my best. As a kid I grew up on the coast, you could touch it from where I played and on a daily basis we used to collect various shellfish from the beach. We would find Lobsters & mussels and my all time favourite, Scallops. You didn't get many of them unless you walked out a few metres into the water but what we did get never last very long as we'd munch them down as soon as we could get them open. The plump sweet juicy scallop literally fills your mouth with joy and excitement, especially when they're so fresh they're still snapping when you collect them.

 For this little dish we're going to do Scottish scallops with pork & apple. 

First you want to source a good scallop form your local fish monger. Try to get hand dived scallops, they're a little more expensive but you're paying for a diver to collect them by hand and preserve the sea floor rather than buying trawled scallops from boats that destroy everything they touch, so that extra few pence really goes a long way. Plus the scallop is cleaner and undamaged. As you can see from the open scallop the skirt and meat is intact rather than full of mud and smashed to bits. You fish monger will open them for you and take the skirt & roe off for you if you feel you cannot do it yourself or if you can you can always try this.. 

A hand dived scallop

Prepped Scallop

For the Pork, we confit a belly in duck fat with a handful mirepoix (thats a posh a chefy word for carrots, onion & celery) over night at 85*c in the oven. You need to make sure the pork is fully covered in the fat so it doesn't dry out. Once you've got the meat lovely and tender we drain it off from the fat and place it into a KitchenAid with seasoning and the veg then paddle it until you have a course looking rillette. Place it into a grease proof lined tray and place another tray on top to compress the meat. Almost like a terrine. Once set, cut into slices and leave in the fridge. 

If it's time you're lacking, black pudding goes very nicely as an alternative.

The dish is also served with diced apple and an apple puree. Cut your apple up in small cubes. With the leftover trimmings just throw them into a pan with a little butter and cook until soft then puree them in a blender. For the diced apple, we placed them into a vacpac bag with a little lemon juice and water bathe them at 65*c for 5 minutes and refresh them in cold water. This is just to cook them slightly without it breaking down all the crunch. This can be done easily with a pan and careful clingfilming.

To finish the dish off you need to season you scallops and pan fry them in a hot pan for a minute each side, once ready squeeze a little lemon juice on top. At the same time in a separate pan you'll need to crisp up the pork belly until its golden brown. Place the belly on the plate and top with the scallops, add a few cubes of apple, some warm puree and a little frizze leaf lettuce. We serve a little shellfish jus on the side just to give a little depth of flavour.

This is great for a starter at a dinner party or you can make smaller one's and use them as little canapés. Either way, your bound to impress with this dish.

@TheChefsLarder

@ChefTemple