Scallops, and some Molecular Gastronomy
When I make a dish, I want to like it. I really do. But it seems all too often these days, I end up making dishes that involve way too much effort for a final result that’s just… underwhelming.
Unfortunately, such was the case with this dish. Originally, the recipe called for skate wings, green beans, and different flavor powders. So I’m willing to accept that my dislike of the dish could be due to the changes I made to it. But given how often I talk about sustainable seafood over on Sushi Day, I couldn’t possibly use the incredibly unsustainable skate wings in my dish. So I opted for the more sustainable scallops.
The best part of this dish, in my opinion, was the edamame – cooked in the beurre monte, it was actually quite good. But the scallops were bland (which makes me sad because I normally love scallops) and the powders weren’t that great… sadly, not worth the effort.
If you’d like to see the original recipe, it (and a lot of information about molecular gastronomy) can be found here. (I would link to the blogger who hosted this month’s Daring Cooks challenge, but I believe his blog is down at the moment. Besides, Audax Artifex always has some of the most creative dishes based around the challenge.)
Ingredients
- 8 scallops
- 300g shelled edamame
- sea salt
- 4 sticks butter, cubed and cold
- water
- 16 slices gari
- 8 stalks green onion
- 1 tbsp wasabi powder
- 1 tbsp togarashi
Cooking Directions
- Wash and thoroughly dry the green onion.
- Chop the green onion coarsely.
- On a paper towel, microwave the green onion for on HIGH for 2 minutes. Set aside any fully dried green onion pieces. Microwave the remaining green onion 2 more minutes on HIGH or until fully dried, stopping at 1 minute intervals to set aside dried pieces (so they don’t burn).
- Crumble the green onion finely between your fingers. (Or if you have a mortar and pestle, or a coffee grinder, you can use them to grind the green onion.)
- Dry the gari between two paper towels.
- Microwave on HIGH until fully dry, about 2-3 minutes.
- Crumble into a powder, like you did with the green onion.
- In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil, remove from heat and whisk in the butter 1 cube at a time. This should from an emulsion – known as a beurre monte. Keep this heated, but under 195 degrees.
- Bring 100g water, 100g beurre monte, and edamame to a boil over high heat. Cook until the water has evaporated (about 3 minutes). When the pan is almost dry, remove it from heat and season with salt.
- Bring 300g water and 300g beurre monte to simmer over medium heat, add scallops and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove the pan from heat and flip the scallops over and let rest in pan for two more minutes. Transfer to warming tray lined with parchment and season with 5 grams of fine sea salt.
- To plate, top a scoop of edamame with the scallops. Garnish the plate with the green onion, gari, wasabi, and togarashi powders.
Audax Artifex 07/16/2009 at 01:50am
Wow at least the pictures fook fab sorry to hear you didn’t like it (the 2nd person so far in my travels). Just love your pixs – the way you focus onto a point in the picture and then the rest is out of focus very professional I especially like the pink and green flakes which I wish I had thought of also. And thanks for the link to my blog a big compliment and the nice comments. Bravo on this challenge even if it didn’t live but to your expectations. Well at least you did like the ‘green beans’ (I never heard of edamame and togarashi before) edamame=baby soybeans togarashi=Shichimi Togarashi, Japanese 7 spice Wow I always like it when I learn something like in this dish. Now you can say that you have done a MC dish which nearly nobody else can say. Cheers from Audax
Audax Artifex´s last blog post… Daring Cooks’ #3 Molecular Cuisine
Lisa 07/16/2009 at 02:09am
I LOVE the Asain take on this dish with the wasabi, edamame, and Shichimi Togarashi (One of my favorite spices, hands down), not to mention the scallops go great with it all. Plus, your plating is beautiful. Phenomenal job, so creative!
Lisa´s last blog post… I’m heading to Jamaica with Grant Achatz!
Lisa 07/16/2009 at 02:10am
Errr..I meant ASIAN..lol Slippery fingers, or eyes!
Lisa´s last blog post… I’m heading to Jamaica with Grant Achatz!
Allison 07/16/2009 at 02:27am
Audax – Thanks! That means a lot, coming from you. I always love hearing about your DB/DC creations – you’re definitely one of the most creative ones there. And I’m glad I could introduce you to a couple of new foods! Hopefully you can try them both soon – I have a feeling you’d enjoy them.
Lisa – Thank you! Scallops are my very favorite type of sashimi, so I thought I’d do a sushi-inspired take on the dish. 🙂
Lara 07/16/2009 at 11:42pm
I went to lunch with a new friend who ordered a dish of edamame and shared … frankly, I went meh… I loved my sushi and nigiri order as usual. I don’t really see the attraction of edamame.
Melissa 07/19/2009 at 12:16pm
Sorry the dish didn’t turn out quite as flavorful as you had hoped…but it looks delicious! Great plating, pretty colors, and I bet the edamame WERE delicious prepared like that!
Melissa´s last blog post… Tilapia and Green Beans, with Home-Dried Powders
Rose 09/17/2009 at 03:34pm
Hi! I’m new to your site. Great blog. You did well with this challenge. We skipped it as we were in the middle of moving, but nice touch with the scallop 🙂
Allison 09/30/2009 at 12:56am
Lara – *shrug* To each his or her own.
Melissa – Thanks, the edamame were fantastic. 🙂
Rose – Thanks!