By Angela Hartnett

This is a wonderful French recipe for scallops with confit potatoes and a ginger and thyme velouté. The potatoes, gently simmered in goose fat, are topped with scallops and the velouté (wine and cream sauce) is spooned over. With clear, detailed instructions from Angela Hartnett this is a real winner.

Serves 4 as a generous starter

Ready in about 1 hour

• 350g jar goose fat (from larger supermarkets)
• Few fresh thyme sprigs
• 1 fresh bay leaf
• 2 garlic cloves, unpeeled and roughly cut up
• 200g good waxy new potatoes
• 75g girolle/chanterelle mushrooms (or use baby chestnut), cleaned
• 25g butter
• 12 fresh prepared scallops (orange coral removed)
• 1/2 tsp Madras curry powder

For the ginger and thyme velouté

• 15g unsalted butter
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 1 fresh bay leaf
• 50g fresh root ginger, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, unpeeled and roughly cut up
• 150ml dry white wine
• Few fresh thyme sprigs
• 150ml fresh chicken stock, hot
• 142ml carton double cream

How to make scallops with confit potatoes

1. Melt the goose fat in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Add the herbs, garlic and potatoes, season, and bring to a gentle simmer. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 15-18 minutes, until just tender. Cool, then lift the potatoes from the fat and peel with a small, sharp knife. Set aside.

2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a clean saucepan. Add the shallot and a little salt and cook quickly over a high heat for a few minutes to just soften. Add the bay leaf, ginger, garlic, wine and thyme, and reduce by two-thirds. Add the stock and reduce by half. Add the cream and reduce by half. Strain into a clean pan and keep hot over a very low heat.

3. Using a knife, scrape off the outer layer of each mushroom stalk. Put the butter in a small frying pan over a high heat. Add the mushrooms and sauté for a few minutes. Take the pan off the heat and remove the mushrooms with a slotted spoon.

4. Add the scallops – in batches – and cook for 30 seconds. Flip with a palette knife and cook for a further 30 seconds. Set aside on kitchen paper somewhere warm. Repeat with the remaining scallops. Whizz up the velouté using a stick blender, until slightly frothy. Cut the potatoes into medium-thick slices. Put 6 slices in a circle, spaced apart, on each deep serving plate. Rest 1 slice of scallop against each potato slice, then dot with mushrooms. Spoon over the velouté to serve.

Tips:

• Buy ratte potatoes if you can find them. Cook the potatoes very slowly. You can re-use the fat – cool until solid, then chill.
• A velouté is a creamy light-coloured sauce, so don’t colour the shallot when frying. Reduce the wine well to remove the alcohol and concentrate the lovely grape flavour.
• Cut each scallop in half through the middle, then sprinkle with the curry powder. Reheat the butter in the mushroom pan over a high heat.
• Scallops must be cooked briefly. Lay them out in a circle in the pan, so you know which ones will be ready first.

© delicious. magazine

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