Scallops, ginger sauce on a bed of leeks

What wonders the scallops are! It is the foie gras of the sea. They offer an incomparable delicacy. They alone illustrate the postulate I'm trying to convince you of in this blog: take a good product you like, leave it alone by giving it a very simple but precise cooking, and turn your creativity towards the accompaniment you are proposing to it. Here, I suggest you put scallops on a bed of leeks melted in butter and drizzled with a soft creamy ginger sauce. A royal sweetness as an entrée. If you want to make it a delicious and light main course, simply multiply the quantities by two and follow exactly the same recipe.

Out of the scallop season, from October to May, the same recipe can be applied to white fish fillets quickly seared in a frying pan (pollack, hake, whiting, etc.), or even to salmon steaks steamed in papillote.

For 4 people

Ingredients

• 8 scallops, dressed, without coral
• 2 leek whites
• 25 g of butter
• olive oil

For the ginger sauce

• 5 shallots
• 2 leek green leaves
• 60 grams of fresh ginger
• 10 cl Noilly Prat, or Extra Dry Martini
• 1 bouquet garni with 5 sprigs of flat parsley, 2 sprigs of thyme, 1 sprig of rosemary, 1 bay leaf, 5 leaves of celery, all tied up in a large leaf of leek green. Wrapping the bouquets with leek green makes it much easier to handle, especially when removing them from the preparations.
• 50 cl crème fraîche
• 25g + 15g butter
• Fleur de sel and white pepper

Equipment

1 sauté pan or a small casserole dish

1 very sharp thin knife

1 saucepan

1 small saucepan

1 wooden spoon

1 strainer or a fine-grained colander

1 large frying pan

Skill

Time frame

45 minutes

Price per person

8 € for a starter, 12 to 15 € for a main course (scallops remain an expensive dish)

Recipe

If you buy your scallops from your fishmonger, do not buy scallops that are already dressed, if that is possible. You can't know when they were opened. Not that your fishmonger wants to poison you with adulterated products, of course! Once you have chosen your artisan for the quality of his products, trust him! But the less time between opening the shell and preparing the dish, the better. And the best way to find out how long it takes from the closed shell to your frying pan is to have the shell open in front of you. I advise you to go to your fishmonger the very morning of your recipe. Buy entire scallops, ask your fishmonger to open them, and dress them (no coral). Either you keep the trimmings and coral for another recipe (a sauce, soup or cream for example), or he keeps them (he will know what to do with them), as you wish. That said, scallops are expensive, and the previously dressed ones are cheaper than whole shells. Your dish will still be a success with scallops already trimmed.

Rinse your scallops. Gently wipe them with absorbent paper. Cut each piece in two equal slices in its thickness, horizontally. For this, use a thin and very sharp knife. If you often cook fish and shellfish, I advise you to buy a fish filleting knife. The blade is long, thin, very sharp and very flexible. Here is mine (on the plate, 6 scallops cut in half).

This knife allows very fine cuts on delicate flesh: cut scallops in two or three, lift fish fillets, etc. I show you the flexibility of the blade in the following picture. Of course, there is one who comes out as soon as I touch a kitchen instrument. However, plump as she is, if I were her, I would be cautious... So I introduce Clelia to you. A Chartreux, as you can see. Logically, I called her after the heroine of the French novel The Charterhouse of Parma. Mademoiselle is a gourmet. You may well see her again, she never misses anything that happens in the kitchen.

Peel the leek whites and cut them into small sticks of about 5 cm. Peel and chop the shallots. Wash the two green leek leaves and cut them into small strips. Peel the ginger and cut it into small sticks. Separate the ginger sticks into 2 parts: about a tablespoon and a teaspoon (about ¾ - ¼).

Then blanch the teaspoon of ginger: put a saucepan on the heat and boil 50 cl of water. As soon as it boils, plunge the ginger sticks into the water and leave them for 1 minute. Remove them, drain them in a colander and rinse them under cold running water for 30 seconds. Keep them aside for finishing.

In the sauté pan, melt 25g of butter over low heat. When it foams, put the leek white sticks in and brown them for 3 minutes over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Turn off the heat, put two pinches of salt and one pinch of white pepper. Keep aside.

Empty the water from the pan in which you blanched the ginger. Put 25 g of butter in it and foam it over low heat. When it foams, pour the chopped shallots into the pan. Sauté them for 3 minutes over low heat, stirring constantly until they melt without browning. Add the leek green strips and continue to stir gently for 2 minutes. Add the Noilly Prat, the tablespoon of ginger sticks and the bouquet garni. Continue cooking over low heat for 3 minutes.

Pour in the crème fraîche. Bring to a boil with a gentle simmer for 10 minutes.

At the end of the ten minutes, filter the sauce through the strainer into the small saucepan. Put it on very low heat. Add 15g of butter, stirring to melt it and mix well. Season with a pinch of fleur de sel, a pinch of white pepper and with the teaspoon of blanched ginger sticks. Leave the pan on the lowest possible heat to keep warm.

Put the leeks back on low heat to warm them up.

Heat a small trickle of olive oil in a large frying pan over high heat. Put the scallops in and sear them for 30 seconds on each side. Remove them to a large plate or dish covered with two layers of absorbent paper. Put a small pinch of fleur de sel and a small pinch of white pepper on each scallop.

Set the plates: put a bed of white leeks, pour the sauce over it, place the scallops on top.