Seared Scallops with Black Pudding, Celeriac Puree, Grilled Bacon & Cider Sauce

Print this recipe ›

Introduction

Buy fresh scallops with the roe on from your local Fishmonger. I find that scallops don’t freeze too well. They’re fine, but not at their best. They seem to shrink more and be a little less tender after freezing.

For this dish, which is a perfect show off main course, you need to be well organised. Make your cider sauce first, you can heat it up when you are ready to drizzle.

Then make the Celeriac Puree. Be careful with this dish, you’ll become addicted very easily. You’ll be eating it all winter in bowl fulls as if it were icecream!

Then grill your slices of finely sliced Bacon and the black pudding. One of my favourite Irish black puddings is Clonakilty but for this dish I think Clon is a bit crumbly and you need the pudding to hold its shape. My other favourite is Kelly’s of Newport Co Mayo Black Pudding. This can come in large circles and this is best for this main course.

When the scallops are seared you can assemble the dish. See end of recipes for the assembly.

Grill 2 slices of bacon per person. There’s some really good Irish back bacon sliced on the shelves of your local shops these days, look out for Hicks , Ummera & Gubbeen. Make sure to grill the bacon till it’s crisp

• Cider Sauce
• 1 litre Cider
• 250 ml Apple Juice
• 1 Cinnamon stick
• 100g Golden Brown Sugar
• 2 heaped teaspoons of cornflour

Put the cider, juice in a pot with the cinnamon stick and bring to the boil, simmer for 10 minutes and then add the sugar. Mix the cornflour with a bit of cold water until it is a smooth paste. Add it to the boiling cider liquid. Whisk well until it starts to thicken slightly.

Celeriac Puree

One celeriac, peeled and cut into small chunks.

Melt 2oz butter in a pot and add the chunks of celeriac.

Over very low heat sauté the celeriac until it’s very soft but not b brown.

Best to put a cartouche over the celeriac. This is very simply a round cover you make out of greaseproof paper, or a butter wrapper. Always keep the butter wrappers for this purpose, place it right into the pot, touching the vegetable. It creates a little steam, helps the vegetable cook quicker and stops any browning.

Add some sea salt at the beginning of the cooking.

When the celeriac is good and soft, not al dente, add 1/ 2 pint cream. Cook this for a further 5 minutes. The blend the celeriac mixture in a jug blender. Use a Viking mixer for this. You will get a far superior creamy smooth texture if you use the jug blender rather than using one of those hand blenders you stick into the pot. Ok so there’s a little more washing up, but this is worth it.

Put the celeriac puree into the pot and bring up to temperature again. Season well, this is very important, it need a fair bit of salt.

Scallops

Leave the roe on the scallops. (Perfectionists will take off the roe, and cook it separately as it cooks more quickly than the white meat of the scallop and only very silly people will discard it completely) Just the scallop if you see any shiny white sinewy stuff on the side. Heat your pan, when it’s hot add a teaspoon of sunflower oil, and a knob of butter. The oil stops your butter burning.

Season the scallops, say 3 large, or 5 small per person, if this is a main course.

Place on the hot pan, all flat side down, leave for 2 minutes to caramelise and brown on one side then turn each scallop over and do the same on the other side. That’s all the cooking they’ll need, you don’t want to over cook them or they will be tough.

Assembly

Making sure to use a warm plate. All us chefs are fond of using large white plates, the bigger the better, 10” great, 12” best.

To be a bit cheffy about this and hopefully wow the guests assemble as follows.

1. Place the large round of just grilled Kelly’s Black Pudding in the centre of the plate.
2. On top, put a dollop of celeriac puree.
3. Use some green here, I haven’t mentioned it in the recipe, it’s not necessary but it might add some needed texture and colour, say a little bit of rocket.
4. Then place the 3 or 5 scallops around this.
5. Next drizzle some of the cider sauce around the plate.
6. Top with two pieces of grilled crisp bacon.

Your plate will have lovely colours of green, cream and pink. A very elegant and of course, tasty dish.