Sea Scallops with Crushed Peanuts and Cucumber Relish

Information

Notes

This delicate, elegant dish is also surprisingly easy to make. I stumbled on adding the peanuts because I wanted something crunchy that would offset the soft, voluptuous nature of the sea scallops yet still echo their buttery flavor. This is a dish in which you really have all the basic tastes of salt, sour, hot, and sweet. If you don’t have dried mango powder, you can use sumac, or even skip it and just slightly increase the lemon juice in the relish. You can chop up the cucumber and tomato relish beforehand and keep it in the fridge, but don’t mix in the peanuts until you are ready to dress the scallops as they will get soggy.

Directions

1. In a large glass bowl, mix the flour, bread crumbs, mango powder, cayenne, and ¾ teaspoon of sea salt.

2. Wash the sea scallops and gently pat them dry with paper towels.

3. In another big bowl, combine the cucumber, tomatoes, 1¼ teaspoons of sea salt, brown sugar, dill, and lime juice.

4. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. While waiting, drop each scallop in the flour mixture, lightly coating all sides.

5. Sauté the scallops over medium-high heat until they are browned on all their surfaces and cooked through; this should only take about 4 to 5 minutes. If you’re using smaller scallops, cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Just before serving, stir the peanuts into the cucumber relish.

6. Put the scallops on a serving plate and place a generous ladleful of the relish over them. Grind a generous amount of black peppercorns over the top. Serve immediately.