I cooked: Pan seared scallops with cauliflower puree and bacon crumble (MasterChef)

Dear readers, how was your weekend? We had a wonderful birthday celebration for Baby D yesterday. Just before the weekend, I made these scallops for my kids for their lunch.

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I was very happy when I found this scallops recipe by Julie Goodwin, Australia's first MasterChef. Scallops, as you all know, is one of my all-time favourite things to cook and eat.

Pan seared scallops with cauliflower puree and bacon crumble

For this recipe, I used frozen Hokkaido scallops, the same ones you saw in my surf 'n' turf recipe. These are sashimi grade, hence not much cooking is needed - so I lightly seared them for about 30-40 seconds each side. The original recipe asks us to cook the scallops for 10-20 seconds but I deduced that they must be pretty small ones to require such short cooking time, so just use your common sense on this one. As I said before, it is better to undercook your scallops than overcook them.

I really liked the bacon crumble, which is made of finely diced bacon and coarse fresh breadcrumbs.   To make your own fresh breadcrumbs, you just need a bread knife and a piece of bread. I used white bread, which I left on the counter to dry out a little. Trim the crust off the bread and using the knife, cut the bread into crumbs ie chop it finely. 1 slice of bread will yield approximately 1/3 cup. I also reduced the bacon from 1 cup to 1/2 cup, which was more than sufficient for this dish. I would probably be making this bacon crumble more often, and topping them on soups and such.

Bacon crumble - delightfully crunchy

For the cauliflower puree, there is no indication as to how many g of cauliflower to use but 1/2 of the cauliflower that I used was around 270g. I roughly chopped the cauliflower (no need to put into food processor) and then cooked it with the milk. After pureeing with a hand blender, I found it to be a little too watery so I added 1 tsp of cornstarch to thicken it slightly. It would be better to reduce the milk to 3/4 cup in future.

Furthermore, there was way too much cauliflower puree for 12 scallops - half the amount would have been sufficient. However, looking on the bright side, the cauliflower puree was delicious as a soup, topped with some of the bacon crumble, which we had for the following meal. (Cook Tip: For 12 scallops starter, you can reduce amount to 150g cauliflower, 1/3 cup of milk and 60g butter as indicated in recipe below)

Overall, I found this a highly delicious dish, one which I wouldn't mind cooking over and over again and serving to dinner guests at our home. It looks visually appealing and tastes amazing too! The cauliflower puree was smooth and rich, and the bacon crumble gave a nice crunchy texture to this dish. 

Served them on natural black slates for nice colour contrast ;)

Eat Me! ;) (special ones for the kids)

Pan seared scallops with cauliflower puree and bacon crumble 

Recipe adapted from MasterChef Australia - Julie Goodwin
Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes
Makes 12 (serves 3-4 person as starter)

Cauliflower puree
150g cauliflower, roughly chopped into small pieces
1/3 cup milk
60g butter, cut into 2cm cubes
Salt, to taste

Bacon crumble
1/2 cup finely diced bacon (approx. 70g - 3 slices of streaky bacon)
1/3 cup coarse fresh breadcrumbs (1 slice white bread)
A drop of olive oil

Scallops
12 scallops (I used frozen Hokkaido scallops)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
20g butter

To garnish
Parsley, finely chopped

1. For the cauliflower puree, roughly chop the cauliflower into small pieces. Place the cauliflower and milk in a saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for about 8-10 minutes until cauliflower is very soft. Remove from the heat, then add the butter and stir until well combined. Season to taste with salt. Blend in a small blender or food processor until smooth (I used a hand blender). Set aside.

2. For the bacon crumble, heat a frying pan over medium high heat, and add a drop of oil. Add bacon and fry for 2-3 minutes, stirring regularly, until crisp and golden brown. Add breadcrumbs, stir to coat, then cook for 5 minutes until golden.

3. For the scallops, wash and pat dry. Season both sides with salt. Heat a frying pan over high heat, add 1 tablespoon olive oil and half the butter. When butter is foaming, add 6 scallops and cook for about 30-40 seconds each side (depending on size) until golden. Remove from heat and set aside. Wipe the pan clean with paper towel, then repeat with remaining olive oil, butter and scallops.

4. To serve, place a dollop (tablespoonful) of cauliflower puree on your serving plate. Place a scallop in the centre of the puree, then sprinkle generously with the bacon crumble. Garnish with parsley and serve immediately.

We had too much cauliflower puree the first time we made it, hence we ate it as a soup. It was very delicious!

Cauliflower puree with scallop and bacon crumble ;)

Cauliflower puree with bacon crumble... I could foresee a bright future for bacon crumble in our kitchen ;)

The many happy-eating-faces of Baby C

I am submitting this to the "Cook Like a MasterChef" bloghop which I am co-hosting with  Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Anuja of Simple Baking. To join, simply cook or bake any recipe (from the contestants, judges or even sponsors) from any MasterChef websites or cookbooks (any countries) and blog hop with us for the whole month of September 2012.

Your post must be a current post i.e. posted in September 2012 - please do not link older posts.

Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja of Simple Baking and Baby Sumo of Eat your heart out.

You can get the HTML code here: get the InLinkz code (Click on the link, copy and paste the HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML mode when you paste in the code)

Happy cooking! Do check out the other bloggers recipe below:

*This post was featured on Asian Food Channel's Facebook page on 3 September 2012. Also featured on Dailybuzz Moms on 6 March 2013 - Serving Up Seafood.

Full set of photos can be viewed on my Facebook page here.