Scallops with vegetable purées and infused foam

A long and descriptive title for a really easy recipe. Scallops are always a success and this recipe is an idea on how to present them with delicious details.

Beautiful picture by Alex

First, you need to make the infusion for the foam. In a saucepan, add 200ml of cream with around 60g of raw peeled ginger and 4 pieces of lemon skin. Let it infuse at low heat during the preparation of the dish.

Then prepare the purées. You can make only one but I chose to have 2 different one underneath the scallops: Parsnip & Turnip. These two vegetables have a very nice lemon-like taste that combines perfectly with the scallops. Just peel the vegetables, cut them in small parts and toss them all together in salted boiling water until they are fork-tender. Then, mix them separately with 5ml of the water they cooked in and 5 ml of cream. Leave it to rest in bowls while you cook the scallops.

For the scallops, first season them salt & pepper, then heat up butter in a pan at high heat and place each scallops clockwise so you know which one were the firsts to be placed. Leave it for 30 seconds (more if you want a thicker crust) and turn them.

Take the infusion out and filter it so you just end up with the infused cream in another saucepan (big enough to let the foam expand). Take a hand-mixer and mix the cream: as you move the mixer around allowing air to mix with the cream, it will start creating a beautiful foam that keeps the entire taste of the infused cream. Make three small lots of purée in the plates, I made two parsnips and one turnip. Place the scallops on top of the lots and add the foam around.

For a detailed presentation: add a thin slice of radish on the side of the scallops, onion grows on top and few grows of cabbage on the foam. 

Enjoy! :)

Chicken Roulade

Another nice, easy but elegant recipe.

Roulade basically means "roll" in french. The purpose of this dish is to have very juicy pieces of chicken with a nice crispy skin around them without roasting anything. The first step is simple: buy one chicken. No, not alive. Well at least mine was a classic supermarket chicken...

The first thing to do is to skin the chicken. The skin is very important for this dish and you have to take it off the chicken as intact as possible. If you don't know how to do it, I recommend watching youtube videos on it or if you want me to make a video of "how to skin a chicken", let me know in the comments!

When you have your skin, just let it rest on the side. Now, remove the 2 breasts and clean them. I recommend taking off the wish bone first to make it easier. Once again, if you want a video I'll show that too.

Lay down the skin on plastic film and place the filet on the skin on top of each other. Roll the skin around the filets and then roll the plastic film around the Roulade as tight as possible. Seal the two sides with string and now it is sous-vide. You should have something like that:

As the 2 breasts will stay apart, you can just dust Activa on the skin and breast if you find some. This powder creates a fusion between the proteins: the 2 breasts will become one as they cook.

Put the roulade sous-vide in water at 65°c for one hour. After that, remove the roulade from the water and take it off the plastic film. If you have a fryer, just drop it in a very hot oil for few minutes until the skin is crispy. If you're like me and don't have a fryer, just heat up olive oil in a pan and place the roulade. Turn it often until the entire skin is crispy with a nice golden color.

Then let it rest for 5 minutes before slicing it. 

I served mine with leek, but I should have also done a purée (sweet potatoe I think). I roasted the rest of the chicken while cooking the roulade so I used the juice from the roasted chicken as a sauce in this dish.

Enjoy! :)