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! :)

Dinner with friends

I recently invited friends over for dinner before we went out. You remember that Alex challenged me to make a Chocolate cake? Well, I didn't really succeed... I'll let you see the dessert to judge that!

The starters were Ginger Scallops in a lime and butter sauce. Except for cooking the scallops, this is a very simple recipe but so delicious. First, dispose on the plate a spoon of Gari (marinated ginger you eat with sushi) and the juice of one lime. Cook your scallops: in a hot pan, 1 minute on each side. You have to be very quick. Melt 100g of butter, and add it on your scallops in the plates. Finish with basil finely chopped.

The second dish was a roasted pork Tenderloin with mozzarella and pesto eggplant. First, colour the tenderloin by cooking each side very quickly in a hot pan, and in the oven with thyme at 200°c for 20 minutes. After this time, take the Tenderloin out and cover it with aluminum foil until you're ready to cut slices and serve.
For the eggplant, cut 1 cm slices and cook them in a pan with olive oil until they are soft. Prepare an oven plate with olive oil at the bottom, take each slice and add mozzarella in the middle with a teaspoon of pesto and fold the edges to the middle. Cook it in the oven at 150°c until the mozzarella melts.
Prepare a sauce by reducing the juice of the tenderloin with cream. It's just what you need to complete the moist texture of the meat.


And the dessert:

I tried very hard to make a perfect chocolate cake for dessert but I failed! and even if it tasted good, it had the shape of a cap... Yes. A cap. So the girls (Heidi and Helle) became very creative and I thank them so much. We cut the cakes in circles (and little hearts), put it

in a opened strawberry meanwhile I prepared a chocolate sauce. I added vanilla ice-cream on the side with 2 physalis.

The challenge wasn't really a success so I'm going to try very soon a new chocolate cake and hope for the best! :)