Fanciful fish

Don't skimp on scallops – buy the best you can – but fishcakes can be made with any variety of white fish, writes DOMINI KEMP

COOKING SCALLOPS AT home is almost like cooking a steak – it’s hard to do well unless you have really decent heat, good pans, plus a good bit of confidence. But with a steak, you can cheat a bit by sprinkling it with a little sugar to help that crust form more quickly, and you have that extra bit of time to spare. Once the Maillard reaction (the browning and caramelisation) has kicked in, you need to keep flipping the steak over and over to ensure good distribution of heat and to make sure that the meat doesn’t cook out too quickly.

But with scallops, they cook so quickly that really all you need is fantastic colour and presto, they are done. Yet this can be hard to achieve when scallops that are full of water hit the pan; all they do is ooze water and end up stewing rather than roasting in the pan.

While I don’t like to lecture people on where or what they should buy, scallops are not worth cooking at home unless you go to a fishmonger who sells the freshest scallops. It’s pretty scary how different they can be in quality, so my advice is if you are going to the trouble of making a scallop dish, then you need to buy some really decent scallops. On the other hand, with these spicy Moroccan fish cakes, you really can put anything into them. Once you add something sharp and pungent – like the red pepper sauce – on to the plate, then all requirements regarding best ingredients are off, so to speak.

Dishes like this are easy to make and hard to mess up. When trying to cook scallops, you need a little focus and some great raw ingredients. Even if you don’t feel it’s worth it, I would still recommend making the giant couscous along with the curry sauce and fennel. It’s tasty stuff and a lot more interesting than regular old couscous. The giant stuff seems to have a wonderful ability to not endlessly soak up flavours – which regular cous cous can tend to do – so it actually gives back something in taste. Like ordinary couscous, it is made from wheat. It makes wonderful salads and goes well with anything citrus-like in flavour.

Seared scallops, giant cous cous salad and curry sauce

Serves 4-5

Raw scallops, allow four to five per person

Curry sauce

1 tbsp olive oil

1 carrot, peeled and sliced

2 celery sticks, roughly chopped

1 leek, sliced

Big knob ginger, peeled and sliced

2 tbsp curry powder

3 tbsp Mirin

2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

200mls water

Salt and pepper

50-75ml cream

Few knobs butter

You can make the sauce ahead of time. Sweat the carrot, celery, leek and ginger in the olive oil until softened a little. Then add the curry powder and mix well so that it coats all the vegetables and cooks out a little. Deglaze the pan with the Mirin and rice vinegar, and after a minute or so, add the water. Season well and cook for about 20 minutes with a lid on, until the vegetables are very soft. Blend until smooth, strain into a clean saucepan, and reduce if necessary to intensify the flavour. Add the cream to taste.

You can leave this to cool fully and then just before searing, reheat it fully, adjust the seasoning and enrich it with a few knobs of butter (this isn’t essential, but it will taste better).

Couscous and fennel salad

500g giant or pearl cous cous

Juice of 1-2 oranges

Salt

2 fennel bulbs, very thinly sliced

Juice of 1 lemon

Squeeze honey

Salt and a glug of olive oil

Cook the couscous in boiling water, as per packet instructions. Drain and rinse under cold water for about 10 seconds to get the heat and starch out. Then drain, and mix it with the orange juice, and season. Set the couscous aside and keep at room temperature. Mix the fennel with the lemon juice, a little honey and some salt and olive oil. Add to the couscous and taste. Adjust as you like.

To serve

Heat a large frying pan with a little olive oil until nearly smoking. Sear about five to seven scallops at a go. Possibly more, as long as they are frying and not stewing. Season them carefully when they’re in the pan with just a little salt and some black pepper. When they have some colour, put a small bit of butter into the pan and baste the scallops with it once melted. When you have colour on them, drain them on kitchen paper and cook the rest.

Warm up the curry sauce and serve a good spoonful of the salad with warm scallops and a spoonful of the curry sauce.

Spicy fishcakes with red pepper sauce

Loosely based on a Diana Henry recipe.

Serves 6 – should make 24 cakes

Red pepper sauce

2 red peppers, sliced and deseeded

1 carrot, chopped and peeled

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 chilli, deseeded and chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

Good pinch of saffron

50g caster sugar

50ml white wine vinegar

50-100ml water

Salt

Sweat the peppers, carrot, onion and chilli in the olive oil with a lid on for about 20 minutes, until soft. Add everything else, except the water, and cook for another bit. After about five minutes, blitz in a blender until smooth by adding some water. Check the seasoning and have it so that it’s as thick as you like it.

Set aside and serve at room temperature. It will taste better once it has cooled down.

Spicy fishcakes

700g white fish, skinned and filleted

1 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp fennel seeds

Pinch chilli flakes

1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

Bunch spring onions, finely chopped

1 egg, beaten

Bunch coriander, finely chopped

Salt and pepper

Small bit of plain flour on a plate

Sunflower oil

In a food processor, pulse all the ingredients for the fish cakes – except the fish – until well combined. Then add the fish chunks and pulse again until well combined but don’t blend to a mush. Shape into approx 24 patties and chill on a baking tray.

When you are ready to cook, pat them with a little flour and then fry on a high heat in the sunflower oil in a non-stick pan. Get colour on one side and then carefully turn them over. You can fry these til they’re done or else just colour them on one side and then put them on a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes at 180 degrees/gas 4.

Serve them warm with the red pepper sauce and some of the cucumber salad.

Cucumber salad garnish

1-2 cucumbers, deseeded and diced or sliced

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

2 tbsp caster sugar

2 tbsp olive oil

Chopped mint

Salt and pepper

Mix everything together and serve as garnish.