European · Starter · From the menu Travesía
Scallop, cauliflower, miso brown butter, lime
Vieira, coliflor, beurre noisette de miso, lima
Scallops seared hard, on a sieved cauliflower purée, with brown butter whisked with white miso and finished with lime. Sweet, nutty, salty, sharp, in that order.
I had been searing these on one side only and I have stopped. Of five published methods, every single one turns the scallop, and the reason becomes obvious once you use a thermometer: the crust wants a very hot pan and the inside wants to stop at 46 degrees, and you cannot do both from one side. What you can do is sear hard, drop the heat right down, turn, and finish in butter for thirty seconds. Same crust, and a centre that is still translucent.
Ingredients
- 6 large dry-packed scallops, roe off, side muscle removed
- 1 cauliflower, about 800 g
- 400 g whole milk and 400 g double cream
- 160 g butter for the purée
- 120 g butter for the sauce
- 90 g white miso
- 1 lime
- 2 tbsp neutral oil
- Salt
Method
- Buy dry-packed scallops. They look rosy rather than bright white, they feel tacky, and they are not sitting in a cloudy pool. Wet-packed ones have been held in phosphate solution and will steam in the pan whatever you do.
- Blot the scallops between two towels on a tray and leave them ten minutes at room temperature, then blot again.
- Break the cauliflower into florets, keeping a handful back. Cook the rest gently in the milk and cream with a little salt until completely soft, about ten minutes.
- Blend with the 160 g of butter and just enough of the cooking liquid to move it, then pass it through a fine sieve. The sieve is what makes it glossy rather than merely smooth. Keep warm.
- Slice the reserved florets very thin and hold them in iced water.
- Brown the 120 g of butter until it foams, smells of hazelnuts and the solids go deep gold. Take it off the heat, and only then stir in the miso. Both published miso butters add it away from the heat.
- Season the scallops only at the moment they go in the pan. Heat a wide pan with the oil until it is just smoking.
- Lay them in flat side down and do not touch them for a minute and a half to two minutes, until the crust is a solid deep brown.
- Drop the heat to low, turn them, spoon the miso butter over and baste for thirty seconds. Pull them at 46 °C, with the centre still translucent.
- Purée down, scallop on top crust up, miso butter around, raw cauliflower and a fine grating of lime zest over. A squeeze of lime juice at the last second.
Serve it with. It is a one-scallop course. Serve it on its own and follow it with something substantial.