Scallop, Chorizo and sautéed Potato salad

You might have already guessed by now that I love seafood....... If you hadn't, this is your heads up, I love it! Scallops in particular are a favorite of mine. Living in a coastal county you would think it would be easy to come by.... Turns out trying to get a hold of fresh seafood is not so easy, as most of it gets shipped to the Continent or Asia, go figure eh?!

Another love of mine is mead. Mead is one of the oldest alcoholic drinks about the place, it is made from honey and can be flavoured with fruit, botanicals and spices. During Lockdown 3.0  I tried a selection of meads from Kinsale Mead Co. and was blown away with how beautiful they were. Denis and Kate were so knowledgeable and the wee personal notes that they put in with the orders are so lovely. If you are wanting to try some mead I highly recommend trying theirs!

Ingredients

Serves 2

• 8 Scallops
• 100g cooking chorizo sliced
• 8 new potatoes cut into 5ml slices
• salt and pepper
• 2 hand fulls of salad leaves
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 30ml of mead (optional)
• Nasturtium flowers (optional)

Give the scallops a wash and make sure that there is none of the digestive tract remaining on them, it looks like a grey line around the scallop, you can trim this off easily with a knife. Pat the Scallops dry and place them aside.

heat the olive oil in a large frying pan on a medium heat and then add the sliced new potatoes. You don't want the oil to be too hot otherwise the potatoes will still be raw on the inside..... It will take about 10-15 minutes for the potato to cook through. make sure to keep turning the slices so that they cook evenly. once cooked remove from the pan and drain on some kitchen paper and sprinkle over some salt and pepper.

wipe out the frying pan and add the Chorizo to the pan and put it on a low heat, you want to release all that garlicky, paprika goodness, turn the slices a few times until they start to crisp up then remove from the pan with a slotted spoon so that the oil they released remains.

turn the heat up high and add in your scallops, you want to get a really good sear on them. After a minute, turn them over and do the same on the other side, you may need to give them a little longer on each side if they are particularly thick.

If you are using the mead add it to the pan, it will reduce very quickly but it gives a really lovely sweetness to the dish. I've used the wildflower mead here as it has a really beautiful subtle flavour, you know it's there but cant quite pinpoint what it is....

Remove the scallops from the pan and its time to assemble!

Start by placing the salad leaves on the bottom, the sautéed potatoes, scatter over the chorizo then place your scallops on top, garnish with some nasturtium flowers. Not only do they look beautiful but they also have a floral peppery flavour. Drizzle over some of the pan juices and serve.

This is one of those dishes that you can quite easily scale up or down, If you are looking for a lighter meal then by all means leave out the sautéed potatoes.

I would love to hear what you think and see if your version of this if you decide to make it!

As always, happy cooking my Lovelies!

Fraoch xx