Roasted scallop with whey butter and sea herbs

Name: Roasted scallop with whey butter and sea herbs
Total time: 1 h
Ingredients: 4 scallops, as large as you can find, shucked and cleaned; 500ml of buttermilk; 200g of unsalted butter, cold and diced, plus a little extra for cooking the scallops; 1 bunch of sea herbs, mixed; sea salt

by Tom Anglesea

Item 1 of 1

Starter
easy
4
60 minutes

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When you've got incredible shellfish, you want to keep the accompanying flavours simple to really allow it to shine. This scallop dish is testament to that, with a giant, pan-fried scallop sitting in a bath of buttery sauce and mixed sea herbs. Splitting the buttermilk and using the whey as the base for the sauce gives it a pleasing tang – a neat trick which works well for any buttery sauces.

This dish was created to be paired specifically with Virgin Wines' Black Flag Winemakers Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2018 – read more about the Black Flag collection here.

First published in 2020

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Ingredients

Metric

Imperial

4 scallops, as large as you can find, shucked and cleaned
500ml of buttermilk
200g of unsalted butter, cold and diced, plus a little extra for cooking the scallops
1 bunch of sea herbs, mixed
sea salt

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Method

Pour the buttermilk into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Continue to cook until the solids separate from the whey, then pass through a fine sieve or muslin cloth into a separate clean saucepan. Heat the whey until it has reduced to 100ml

500ml of buttermilk

Meanwhile, bring a small pan of salted water to the boil. Pick the sea herbs and give them a good wash. Blanch the herbs in the boiling water for 5 seconds, then drain and immediately plunge into iced water. Drain and set aside

1 bunch of sea herbs, mixed

Once the whey has reduced to 100ml, slowly whisk in the diced butter until you have a thick, buttery emulsion. Season with salt and keep warm

200g of unsalted butter, cold and diced, plus a little extra for cooking the scallops
sea salt

For the scallops, place a frying pan over a high heat. Fry the scallops for 2 minutes each side, adding a small knob of butter and basting them continuously as they cook. Once cooked, season and leave to rest for 1 minute

4 scallops, as large as you can find, shucked and cleaned

To serve, place the blanched sea herbs in the butter emulsion and gently warm through. Spoon the emulsion and herbs into 4 bowls, then slice each scallop in half and place on top