Scallops with scorched tomatoes and a Spanish style sauce

My wife and I recently went to Tom Kerridge’s Hand and Flowers restaurant over in Marlow (which I can’t recommend enough by the way) and this dish is very loosely based on a scallop dish that my wife had as a starter. And by loosely based I mean it contains scallops and tomatoes. Their version naturally had all sorts of additional fancy stuff in it, but I was fairly busy the day I cooked this dish so unfortunately I didn’t have the time to preserve fennel or collect the necessary bee pollen.

Serves: 2
Cooking time: approx 25 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

• about 6 medium sized scallops, with or without the roe
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped or crushed)
• 1 red pepper, roughly chopped
• 5 decent sized, vine-ripened tomatoes, roughly chopped (these are for the sauce)
• 100g chorizo, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 3 or 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
• half a glass of decent red wine
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• a handful of picolo or cherry tomatoes, cut in half (these are for charring)
• butter
• 1 lemon

METHOD:

Start by making the sauce. Add the onion to a saucepan along with a good knob of butter and a splash of olive oil. Cook over medium heat for a few minutes until the onions start the soften, then add the chorizo. Fry for a further minute or two, then add the chopped up tomatoes, peppers, tomato puree, thyme and garlic. Stir, turn up the heat and after a couple of minutes add the wine and balasamic vinegar. Give everything a good stir, bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes. After 5 minutes give it a taste and add seasoning if necessary. If the sauce is a bit tart, you may also want to add some sugar to balance it out. If at any point you the you think the sauce is getting too thick add a small splash of water. You don’t want it to become watery though, the sauce needs to have the consistency of a thick soup. When done, remove and throw away the thyme stalks, add the sauce to a blender and blitz until smooth. Then pour it back in the pan and keep warm over very low heat.

Next, place a large frying pan on the hob over high heat. Rub the piccolo or cherry tomatoes very lightly in olive oil and place flat side down into the dry, hot pan. Fry for a minute or so until they’ve started to char, then turn them over and fry for another minute, then remove from the pan and set aside. Keep the pan on the hob.

Now it’s time to fry the scallops. Dry them off with kitchen towel, then rub them lightly all over with olive oil. Gently place the scallops in the hot pan and fry for one minute, then turn them over and add a large knob of butter. Fry for another minute, spooning over the melted butter every 10 seconds or so. Turn off the heat, squeeze over some lemon juice, then remove from the pan. Season lightly with salt and pepper.

Finish the dish by adding a few ladles of the sauce into bowls, add your scallops (I like too slice them in half first if they’re large as it makes for easier eating) and finish off with the charred tomatoes, a drizzle of olive oil and a few fresh thyme leaves. Serve with warm, sour dough bread!