Stuff yer bake

When Nick Pledger from Island Seafare Ltd said he would like to send me some Queenie scallops to try I was very excited. It was all in aid of the up and coming Isle of Man queenie scallop festival and marine day which is taking place for the first time to celebrate the well loved local seafood. There is also a competition to enter your best queenie scallop recipe, with the prize being that the Hairy Bikers will cook your recipe on marine day and you will receive a personalised trophy and £100 worth of seafood. 

While waiting for my exciting delivery I wracked my brains as how best to capture their subtle soft flavour and came up with a few ideas but since he very kindly sent me 1 Kilo of the little beauties I could try them all.  The first one I wanted to try was a saffron risotto but I didn’t want to mix the scallops into it, I wanted to showcase them round the edge of a risotto-y mound and have some sort of butter melting over them. The presentation is a little pretentious but I think it looks good and it shows off the most important part of the dish. The taste was really good too, even if I do say so myself.

Ingredients

12 Queenie scallops

200g risotto rice

750ml of fish, vegetable or chicken stock

half a wine glass of white wine or vermouth

a very large pinch of saffron

a tblsp of olive oil

a stick of celery, finely chopped

1 medium onion, finely chopped

zest of an orange

40g butter

a handful of pine nuts, toasted

salt and freshly ground black pepper

smoked Maldon sea salt (optional)

extra virgin olive oil to serve.

Begin by making the butter. Coarsely chop the toasted pine nuts, place them in a bowl with the orange zest, a little seasoning and the butter and mash together with a fork. Leave to one side. Heat the olive oil in a pan over a medium heat, add the onion and celery and cook for about five minutes to soften. Stir in the rice to coat it with the oil and cook for a minute then add the vermouth or white wine and stir until it is all absorbed. Bring the stock up to simmering point and add the saffron. Start adding ladles of the stock into the rice and stir continuously until it is absorbed. Repeat the process until the rice become soft, but still retains a very slight bite. Once cooked, take the risotto off the heat, dollop half the butter on top and cover with a lid for about 10 minutes.

Take your scallops, remove the coral and toss them both separately in olive oil. Heat a frying pan over a medium to high heat and add the corals. Cook for a couple minutes until nicely coloured then stir into the risotto. Season the risotto to taste then place a mound of the risotto in the middle of a warmed plate. Take the scallops, add them to the pan and cook for about a minute on each side. Dot the rest of the butter on the top of each scallop and allow to melt. Remove from the pan and arrange around the plate, drizzling with the buttery juices from the pan and a little extra virgin olive oil. Finally crumble a few crystals of the smoked sea salt on top of each scallop and serve immediately.

I had to use up the harissa and the preserved lemons that I bought for the couscous and having seen a few recipes with harissa smeared on various meats and poultry I plumped for a whole shoulder of lamb (bone in for more flavour). Lamb shoulder is a delicious tender cut of meat and is best slow roasted to render out the fat and let it baste the meat.

I simply trimmed off some of the fat and skin and delved my knife into the flesh to make big gashes all over. I then took about 2 tablespoons of harissa and smeared it all over the meat. The meat was put on a rack and roasted in the oven for about four hours at 150 degrees centigrade. It shouldn’t colour too much but if it does just put some tin foil on top for the last part of the cooking time. When the meat has finished cooking, take it out of the oven and leave to rest for up to thirty minutes, then carve delicious thick slices. Serve with roast potatoes and whatever vegetables you like.

A whole shoulder of lamb is quite a big piece of meat, even for the two of us, so with the leftovers I made couscous. Measure out whatever quantity of couscous you want and put into a bowl. Check the back of the packet of couscous to find out what quantity of liquid you need. Measure out some lamb stock (or use whatever stock you wish) and also put a few strands of saffron into it and a handful of chopped dried apricots to plump up in the liquid. Heat the stock with the apricots to boiling point, pour over the couscous and cover with cling film for about five minutes. Chop up a handful of pistachio nuts, mint, parsley and a couple of preserved lemons. Once the couscous has absorbed all the liquid and is tender, break it up with a fork and drizzle a little olive oil over or add a knob of butter, letting it melt into the grains. Finally heat up the leftover meat fully and add along with all the other chopped ingredients. A quick and easy delicious meal.

I first had this meal cooked for me when I was in Cumbria and I knew I had to do it again. This is no ordinary couscous recipe, it’s spicy, sweet and full of flavour and texture. The list of ingredients is quite comprehensive but each ingredient adds its own dimension to the rich and full flavour and the spices can of course be used again. The recipe is from the Guardian newspaper’s column “The New Vegetarian” by Yotam Ottolenghi, give it a go.