Grilled scallops, sandwiched between double-breaded fennel schnitzels with an onion-bacon campfire, in a green pepper forrest
Fiya, Jordan and myself came up with a little food challenge:
Come up with a dish that covers each of our favourite foods – scallops (Jordan), egg (Fiya) and sandwiches (myself)
As I had never cooked or eaten scallops before I had to be somewhat imaginative. The form of the scallops reminded me of marshmallows. When I think of a marshmallow-sandwich I immediately think about a s’mores – the roasted marshmallow with chocolate between two cookies. Immediately i knew that this was the way in wanted my dish to look like. To not overpower the taste of the scallops I wanted to use fennel as accompanying vegetable with its very mild anis-like taste. Fiya suggested eggs as his ingredient and I had already made up my mind on the s’more sandwich, so this was somewhat of a massive curveball for me. I originally wanted to use bread as a basis for the s’more, but thought I could possibly also get away with fennel schnitzels, including egg in the breading. As s’mores are usually eaten by the campfire, this became my scene for the dish.
This challenge was fun and really kicked-off my creativity. Let’s hope there’s more to come in the future. If you want to join us in similar challenges, drop us a message!
Make the onion-bacon jam
Render 6 bacon rashes in a skillet until crispy, get out and drain on paper. Cube 2 onions, 2 cloves of garlic, fry until translucent in the bacon fat. Add 2 tablespoons of honey, 1 teaspoon of ginger, 2 tablespoons of tomato puree, 50ml of water. Cover with a lid and cook for 1 hour. Add onion jam and rendered bacon into a blender and pulse to combine.
Make the celeriac root puree
Peel one small celeriac root, cut into cubes, cook with 500 ml milk in pot with some salt for 20 minutes. Drain but catch some of the liquid, puree, season with salt and pepper.
Grill the bell peppers
Halve some mild green peppers lengthwise. Put them on a grill or griddle to char them on the cut-side.
Fry the scallops
Sear scallops on high heat 2 minutes per side in some oil. Reduce heat and baist until cooked through.
Make the double-breaded fennel schnitzels
Slice fennel up through the root to a thickness of 5mm. Parboil slices in water with some salt for 2 minutes, drain and pat dry. Have 3 bowls ready with seasoned flour, beaten egg wash and seasoned breadcrumbs. Dip each fennel slice in flour, egg, breadcrumbs, egg and breadcrumbs again. Heat 1 cm of oil in a frying pan and deep-fry fennel slices. Drain on kitchen towels.
Assemble the dish
Put some celeriac puree on a plate, make the s’more by stacking fennel, scallops, jam, closing with fennel. Garnish with more jam and decorate with grilled peppers and fennel green.
Check out Fiya and Jordan on Instagram to see what they cooked up for this little challenge!
Do you like the creativity of the dish? Have you ever ‘schnitzeled’ something like fennel before? Want to join in similar challenges? Let me know in the comments below!
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