food
Pacific Rim — Kaiju Salad and Deep Sea Scallops
This week's recipes are inspired by the Giant Robots vs Giant Monsters extravaganza, Pacific Rim, and in honor of Guillermo Del Toro, we're making a Kaiju salad poised to battle an atmospheric plate of Deep-Sea Scallops.
food
Pacific Rim — Kaiju Salad and Deep Sea Scallops
This week's recipes are inspired by the Giant Robots vs Giant Monsters extravaganza, Pacific Rim, and in honor of Guillermo Del Toro, we're making a Kaiju salad poised to battle an atmospheric plate of Deep-Sea Scallops.
Supplies
- A glass of white wine
- A handful of parsley stalks
- 1 onion, peeled and quartered
- 1 bulb of fennel, quartered
- 1/2 a large octopus
- A handful of new potatoes (400g)
- 1 carrot, julienned
- Olive oil (50 milliliters)
- 1 lemon
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 teaspoon of chilli flakes
- A handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped
- A handful of pea sprouts
Steps
- Boil a large pan of water.
- Turn down the heat to a simmer, then add white wine, parsley stalks, onion and the fennel.
- Cut the tentacles away from the head of the octopus and discard the head.
- Add the tentacles to the water and cook very gently for 1 hour, until it is soft when pierced with a knife.
- Remove the octopus with the vegetables and allow to cool.
- Peel and dice the potatoes into large cubes.
- Chuck them into a pan of salted water.
- Heat the potatoes to a boil and cook for 15 minutes, until soft but holding together. Add the julienne of carrots 30 seconds before the end of cooking, so that they just start to soften.
- Let the potatoes and carrots cool a little before adding to a bowl with the octopus.
- Drizzle over the olive oil.
- Zest and squeeze the juice from the lemon into the bowl.
- Mince the raw garlic and throw it in with the chilli seeds and the parsley.
- Toss in the pea sprouts just before serving and toss everything together.
Supplies
- Yuzu juice or seasoning (50 milliliters)
- 2 sheets of gelatin
- A handful of popped popcorn
- 2 nori sheets
- A handful of panko breadcrumbs
- Several knobs of unsalted butter
- Dried wakame seaweed (50g)
- 1 clove of garlic
- Samphire (100g)
- 1 teaspoon of sesame seeds
- 1 lemon
- 1 tablespoon of sesame oil
- A shot of olive oil
- 8 king scallops
- A large shallot
- White wine (200 milliliters)
- 8 peppercorns
- 2 bay leaves
- 12 clams or mussels
- Soy lecithin (1g)
- Starfish ice cube tray (available from ikea and amazon)
Steps
- Soak the gelatin in cold water.
- Whisk the yuzu into 50 milliliters of water, then pour into a small saucepan and bring to the boil.
- Squeeze the moisture from the gelatin and dissolve in the hot yuzu water.
- Pour into the starfish ice cube tray (or a regular tray) and leave in the fridge for a few hours to set.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C.
- Place the popcorn and the nori into a food processor and blitz to a rough powder.
- Soak the wakame in warm water for a few minutes.
- Peel and mince the garlic and heat a knob of butter in a frying pan.
- Add the soaked wakame, samphire, sesame seeds and garlic to the pan and fry gently for a few minutes.
- Squeeze in half of the lemon juice and add the sesame oil as you toss together.
- Heat a pan over a very high heat and add a shot of oil.
- Lay the scallops in the pan and cook for a minute on each side, until they are a deep caramel brown.
- Add a knob of butter, a squeeze of lemon and remove the scallops to a sheet of kitchen towel.
- Dice the shallot and chuck it in a large pan.
- Add the wine, peppercorns and bay leaves then bring to a boil over a high heat.
- Throw in the clams or mussels and cover the pan and allow to bubble away until they are fully open.
- Strain the liquid and measure 100 milliliters.
- Sprinkle over 1 gram of soy lecithin and use an immersion blender to blitz until a foam forms on the top.
- Spoon the popcorn 'sand' over the plate and arrange the seaweed and samphire around the sand.
- Place the scallops, clams and yuzu starfish around the plate.
- Finish with a generous helping of foam.