A great chance to enjoy the mind blowing combination of scallops and chorizo. Full-on flavour with delicate hues for an easy-to-do yet gorgeous recipe.
You know I find amusing the interesting British habit of adding chorizo to pretty much any ingredient in order to turn a recipe into a ‘Spanish’ one. Yes I’m stereotyping here which is bad, but the thing is that I can’t still get over the ‘chicken and chorizo paellas’ or ‘Jamie’s Spanish tomato and chorizo salad’. Every time I see one of those, a unicorn dies.
But trust me, scallops and chorizo is good business. Of course if used in the right proportion. That is very little chorizo per a generous portion of scallops. Don’t respect this basic rule and the meat will completely overpower the beautiful but delicate flavour of the scallops. Respect it and you’ll get an amazing combination of flavour and texture. And then is the green pea puree, bringing everything together in a discreet and elegant way… A gorgeous recipe with plenty of subtle hues which you will no doubt love.
INGREDIENTS
- 12 Scallops
- 50 g Cooking chorizo
- 200 g Green peas
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 0.5 Red chilli
- 125 g Unsalted butter
- 4 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Salt
- Lamb's lettuce (optional)
- Soy sprouts (optional, for decoration purposes)
METHOD
- Clean the scallops under water, pat-dry them and place them in a food container. Drizzle with half the oil and season with black pepper. Leave them to rest for 2 hours.
- Spread the small chorizo cubes over an oven-ready dish and place in the oven at 80ºC for 20 minutes or until they are a bit crunchy. Take off the oven, reserving the fat that has resulted from oven-baking the chorizo.
- To make the green pea puree, place the peas and the garlic inside a pot with boiling water and salt. Boil for 2 minutes and then remove the garlic, cool it down under the tap and skin it.
- Strain the peas, keeping some of the water for later. Mix the peas together with the garlic, the butter and the rest of the olive oil. Blend into a puree and add 2-3 tbsps of the water you reserved. Blend again and season with salt and pepper. Keep warm.
- Cook the scallops on a very hot grill for 45 secs each side until they are a bit golden.
- To plate, spread some of the green pea puree at the bottom of the dish and place three scallops on top. Sprinkle some chorizo cubes and some few thin slices of the red chilli. Drizzle with some of the chorizo fat and season with salt. You can add some soy or onion sprouts as decoration and accompany with some lamb’s lettuce.
