Salad of Seafood with Tomatoes & Roasted Lemons - Salad Days # 7

Yesterday was my birthday, and of course a birthday calls for celebration food.  Staying with my salad theme this month, I had been thinking along the lines of perhaps a duck and crispy noodle salad.  But then, my lovely friend Martine, who knows me so well, gave me a couple of crayfish tails.  If you're a seafood lover, you will know that few birthday gifts can rate as highly as crayfish tails!

I already had some scallops on hand and some prawns, so there was no doubt there was a substantial seafood salad in the making.

The crayfish and prawns were lightly poached until just cooked through - take care not to overcook them - and the scallops sauteed in a little olive oil.

Further inspiration came from this recipe from my food hero, Yotam Ottolenghi.  I just couldn't go past those roasted lemons.  One or two lemons (depending on how many people you are serving) are sliced wafer thin and blanched in boiling water for a couple of minutes.  After draining the lemons, toss them gently with a little olive oil, generous sprinkling of flaky sea salt, drizzle of honey, and a generous handful of fresh oregano leaves, finely chopped.  Spread the lemons in a single layer on a lined baking tray, and roast in an oven preheated to 160 degrees C (325 degrees F) until starting to char.

Remove lemons from the oven and toss with chopped tomatoes (use as much variety of colours and sizes as you can) and avocado.  Drizzle over a little extra virgin olive oil, some roughly chopped flat leaf parsley, and a generous sprinkling of sumac.  Toss gently to combine everything.

Add seafood to the bowl, and once again toss gently to mix everything together.  Arrange on a serving platter and serve immediately.

I finished everything off with a drizzle of this Preserved Lemon Dressing.

The creamy avocados, tangy bite of the tomatoes, and caramelised lemons, along with the citrus tang of the sumac and the preserved lemon dressing compliment the sweet, delicate seafood beautifully without overpowering it.  This was definitely a dish fit for a special occasion - thanks, Martine xo

This is salad number 7 in my Salad Days, 28 days of salad project.   What's that you ask?  Well,  I've said it here a dozen times or more ... I love salads.  A big bowl, substantial salad is hands down my favourite meal any time of the year.  Such is my love of salad, that I'm challenging myself to come up with a different salad every day for the month of February - that's 28 days of salads - and I plan to share as many of them as I can with you.  I'll also be doing some flashbacks to some of my favourite salads I've shared in the past.

What's more, I'm giving you the opportunity to share some of your favourite salads with me too.  Have a favourite salad you'd like to share?  Simply link up your salad recipe using the linky tool at the bottom of this post.  The linky will be open all month, and you can join in any day or every day, and link as many recipes as you like.  Feel free to grab the Salad Days badge from the sidebar to include in your post if you'd like to.  There's really no rules around linking up, other than please, use your manners and link your post back to this one.  Linking old posts is fine too, just please edit them to include the back link.  Thanks for sharing your favourite salad with us.

Scallops with Sweet Potato, Spinach & Vanilla Saffron Sauce Recipe

Here is a recipe which is totally unlike any of the usual fare that you might usually find on my blog, but in exploring the use of vanilla for a "Make it with ... Mondays" entry I wanted to try and use this ingredient in a more savoury application.  I had once seen Jamie Oliver on TV preparing fish with vanilla, and the idea of that combination was intriguing to me.  I set about searching in books and on the internet for recipes with fish and vanilla and didn't manage to turn up anything that was particularly appealing.

Then in an old issue (number 118 to be precise) of Cuisine magazine I came across this recipe for Hapuku with Spinach, Kumara & Saffron Vanilla Butter Sauce.  This was in fact a recipe from Swell restaurant, Waikanae Beach, which had been requested by a reader.  I really liked the idea of this recipe, but some of the steps and techniques involved were a bit "cheffy" for me - let's not forget I am the master of the one-pot-wonder, so I did make several changes to turn this into really a very simple dish.  Furthermore, since I was eating on my own, I decided to splash out on some beautiful scallops instead of the fish.  Using the original recipe as my inspiration, this is what I did to turn this into a beautiful dinner for one.

Scallops with Sweet Potato, Spinach & Vanilla Saffron Sauce Recipe

Inspired by recipe in Issue 118 of Cuisine Magazine

One generous serving (or two small serves)

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

12 scallops

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 vanilla bean *(reserve 1/2 for sauce)

olive oil

1 medium-sized, orange-fleshed sweet potato

olive oil

flaky sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

2-3 large handfuls baby spinach leaves

butter

flaky sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

For the sauce:

1/2 cup fish or chicken stock

1/2 cup white wine

2 cloves garlic, peeled (not chopped)

2 bay leaves

pinch saffron threads

1/2 vanilla bean *(see above)

1-1/2 teaspoons cream

2-3 tablespoons butter

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C (390 degrees F).  Peel the sweet potato and cut into smallish cubes.  Line a roasting pan with a sheet of parchment paper, add the sweet potato, drizzle liberally with olive oil, sprinkle over some flaky sea salt and freshly ground pepper, and toss well to make sure all the sweet potato is well coated.  Roast in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes until golden and crispy.

Meanwhile, put the lemon juice into a shallow bowl.  Cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and set one half aside to use for the sauce.  Scrape the black seeds out of the other half and add them, along with the scraped out bean pod, to the lemon juice.  Add a generous drizzle of olive oil, stir to combine, and add scallops to the mixture.  Leave to marinate for a few minutes while you prepare the sauce.

Put stock and wine into a small saucepan with the whole garlic cloves and bay leaves, set over high heat and allow to reduce by half.  Scrape the seeds out of the reserved 1/2 vanilla bean, and add the seeds and pod to the pan, along with the saffron strands.  Reduce down to about 1-1/2 tablespoons.  Set aside to infuse while you prepare to cook the spinach and scallops.

Set a non-stick pan over high heat, add the scallops to the hot pan and sear on both sides.  These take just a moment or two on each side and care should be taken not to over-cook or they will be rubbery.

In a separate pan, heat a generous knob of butter, add the spinach leaves, sprinkle with flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and cook until just wilted - again just a moment or two.

While the spinach and scallops are cooking, finish the sauce.  Strain the sauce into another small pan (discarding the vanilla bean, bay leaves and garlic clove), and add the cream.  Bring to a simmer, then add in the butter a teaspoonful at a time, whisking constantly so that each addition is fully emulsified.

To serve, place the roasted sweet potato on a serving plate, and top with the wilted spinach.

Arrange the seared scallops over the top, and drizzle generously with the sauce.

As I said before, this is definitely not the kind of thing that I normally make - it's a rare thing indeed for a sauce to be made in my house - but I will definitely make it again.  It was utterly delicious, and made a really special treat for "just me", or would be a beautiful dish to serve company for a special occasion.  I found that the scallops didn't really pick up that much flavour from the vanilla in their little marinade, even though you can see plenty of the little black seeds on the flesh of the scallops cooking in the pan.  It may be that I had a little too much lemon juice in the marinade which dominated a little, and I would reduce that next time (maybe even leave it out altogether).  The flavour of the vanilla did definitely come through in the sauce though - not strongly, but certainly unmistakably there - subtle and tantalising. The sauce had a beautiful savouriness to it and is certainly a sauce that I would make again - it would make a beautiful accompaniment to a piece of fish and also worked extremely well with the spinach and sweet potato.

This post is my contribution to Make it with ... Mondays challenge vanilla - the linky is open until Monday 24 January, so keep your vanilla posts coming, and don't forget to check out this week's special ingredient which is quinoa.

I'm also submitting this post to Magazine Mondays and the Hearth & Soul blog hop and to Food on Friday: Scallops, hosted by Carole at Carole's Chatter.

Solitary Pleasures

Some of you will be surprised to know that I am a woman of few words in the morning. It's simply not my best time of day, and just being upright is challenging enough for me without being required to make any kind of meaningful conversation within the first hour of being roused. Once my general reticence to start the day has subsided, the first words that I usually utter are "what would you like for dinner?". The response usually goes along the lines of "I don't know - I'm not even dressed yet". Whilst this might be a fairly predictable reply, I'm sure you'll agree it's not particularly helpful!

Occasionally though my partner will be working late, or might be in a totally different "food mood" to me and will suggest that I fix something for myself and he will organize his own dinner. I used to be totally hopeless at cooking just for myself - solo dining used to be something like a couple of boiled eggs or a few crackers and a piece of cheese. Now I love such opportunities - these are the times when I can make something for myself that my partner doesn't like, or indulge in something that might be too extravagent to cook for a crowd but which is a wonderful treat for one.

When just such an opportunity presented itself the other morning, my mind immediately leapt to thoughts of two of my spring time favourites - asparagus and scallops. Casting my mind around for inspiration on how to put them together I remembered something I had seen Giada de Laurentiis do on Food TV (have I mentioned that I am a Food TV addict?) - a grilled asparagus and melon salad.

Using that as my inspiration I decided to use peaches instead of melon - this is after all not the season for melon, and I knew that any melons in the shops at present would be watery and tasteless. I know it's not the season for peaches either, but I have a peach secret ... in my opinion, even when they are in season, peaches these days just seem to be usually flabby, thick skinned and horrible - they taste nothing like the peaches of my childhood. But I have discovered these fantastic tinned peaches from Spain, available from the Mediterranean Warehouse, which of course you can have all year round.

I drizzled the asparagus with a little olive oil, sprinkled them with a little flakey sea salt, put them on a hot grill pan, along with the peaches, until tender and charred.

Meanwhile, I popped a couple of slices of prosciutto in a hot oven until crisp. I treated the scallops to a tamarind and maple syrup glaze, which I marinated them in for a while, before then cooking them also on the hot grill pan. They literally take only a couple of minutes.

Some peppery wild rocket I had picked up at the organic vege market went into the final assembly, along with a little drizzle of very good extra virgin olive oil, and I have to say this was a taste sensation. I know that I will be making this again and again.

The quantities in the recipe following are for one serving, but you could easily just multiply that if you wanted to serve more people - this would be fantastic served on a big platter for a light but luxurious lunch.

Tamarind Glazed Scallops
with Grilled Asparagus & Peaches Recipe

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

Serves 1 or several

For each person:

6x asparagus spears

2x peach halves

6-8 scallops

1x slice of prosciutto

(I actually used 2 slices, because I am greedy)

handful of rocket leaves

extra virgin olive oil

Tamarind Glaze:

2T tamarind concentrate (refer Source Guide)

(you could use the pulp which you soak and then drain,

but I prefer to use the concentrate)

2T maple syrup

1tsp olive oil

salt & pepper

(this amount would easily be enough for 12x scallops)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees, with an empty baking tray in the oven while it heats.

Mix all ingredients for the Tamarind Glaze together in a small bowl. Add scallops to the bowl, making sure they are all completely covered with the glaze, and leave to marinate while you prepare the other ingredients.

Place slice/s of prosciutto on the hot baking tray, and place in the oven until crispy - this will really only take a few minutes, so keep an eye on it.

Drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the asparagus spears, and place on a very hot grill pan. Place peach halves on the grill pan at the same time. Sprinkle a little flakey sea salt over the asparagus and cook until charred and tender.

Remove asparagus from the pan. Continue cooking the peaches. Shake excess marinade off the scallops and add them to the pan. Cook until caramelised on each side - this literally takes just seconds on each side.

To assemble, place asparagus on plate. Arrange peach halves and scallops over the top. Strew a few torn up rocket leaves over the top. Crumble the crispy prosciutto over the top of everything, and finish with a drizzle of the best extra virgin olive oil you can lay your hands on.

I'm sharing this post at Food on Friday: Scallops, hosted by Carole at Carole's Chatter.