Scallops with celeriac, bacon and seashore vegetables

Serves 8

Healthy Yummies
Saturday 09 October 2010 00:00 BST
Comments
This dish demonstrates how a restaurant dish can be transformed into something simple and delicious that you can enjoy while you're on the go
This dish demonstrates how a restaurant dish can be transformed into something simple and delicious that you can enjoy while you're on the go (Jason Lowe)

Healthy Yummies is a creative catering outlet specialising in delicious and nutritional snacks and its director is Nichola Smith, who used to work for me at the Rivington. Nichola had rounded up some fantastic ingredients such as seashore vegetables, dived scallops and fantastic bacon to produce this top-notch snack, served in the scallop shell, on a bed of creamed celeriac. Dishes such as this one represent the sophisticated and imaginative side of street food and demonstrate how a restaurant dish can be transformed into something simple and delicious that you can enjoy while you're on the go. For more information see healthyummies.com.

If you can't get your hands on wild sea vegetables then use a few leaves of baby spinach instead.

Half a small head of celeriac, peeled and roughly chopped
A couple of good knobs of butter
A little vegetable or corn oil for frying
60g streaky bacon cut into rough 1/2 cm dice (or use ready-cut pancetta or bacon cubes)
8 medium-sized scallops, cleaned and the half cup shell reserved
Salt and freshly ground pepper
A handful of sea vegetables such as sea beet, sea aster, sea purslane and sea blite, etc

Put the celeriac into a pan of lightly salted water, bring to the boil and simmer until tender, then drain and blend until smooth in a food processor; return to a pan and add a little butter and re-season.

Fry the bacon in a little vegetable oil for a few minutes until nicely coloured, then remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and keep warm. Season the scallops and fry on a high heat in the same pan for about a minute or so on each side.

Meanwhile, heat the rest of the butter in a pan and gently cook the sea vegetables for a couple of minutes until tender, seasoning with a little pepper and salt if necessary.

To serve, warm the scallop shells then spoon a little of the celeriac into each shell, place the scallop on top, then toss the bacon with the sea vegetables and scatter on top.

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