You say ‘scollops’, I say bollxxxx

I don’t know why this irritates me, but it is annoyingly an accepted variation of ‘scallop’. Scollop is also an Irish word for some kind of thatching device, so in order to avoid this traumatic confusion, let’s stick with scallop.

Continuing the theme of rediscovering Simon Hopkinson recipes, I finally allowed myself to attempt a scallop mousseline. Now, I haven’t avoided this through any technical fear. It’s just the purist in me struggles with the idea of blitzing a perfectly wonderful, gastronomically excellent entity. Likewise steak tartare, and baking really amazing cheeses. However, the fishmonger threw in an extra two handfuls of local mini-scallops, that already only cost $7 a kilo. It would be rude not to…..

So I found myself cleaning and opening about a 100 tiny bloody scallops at around 10pm one evening because I didn’t want the things to lose freshness before being pulverised. “Hi mum, yeah, fine to talk, carry on……”

Anyway, everything has to be kept COLD.

• 200g (I had 250g) scallop white meat
• 1 egg
• 250ml cream (I think I upped to 300ml of 50% fat, almost clotted cream)
• decent few grinds of  finely ground white pepper

All whizzed up in the (pre-chilled) Kenwood mixer though a food processor would be better, tipped into a chilled bowl and whisked with a chilled whisk until slightly thickened. Maybe I should have turned on the aircon…..

Simon puts his in 6 butter lined little darioles- a great word, they are wee metal conical cups by the way. I put mine in 4 glass cups with almost straight sided, covered with foil, and cooked in a bain marie type affair, filling the water in the pan to just below the level of the mixture. They seemed done when they were just firm to touch.

Meanwhile, the lobster sauce….

Well, it just happened that I had some yabbie/ prawn stock in the freezer, so I reduced this down with some

• tomato passata
• sherry
• tarragon
• cream

In some kind of appropriate quantity. Basmati rice and salad to serve as shown.

What a bizarre and wonderful creation this was, a massive hit of sheer essence of scallop, almost cep like. It screamed out a very good chardonnay, which was a McHenry Hohnen, from Margaret river.