The Cookbook Challenge ~ Week 3 Hors d’oeurves

Reading about The Cookbook Challenge concept on My Food Trail it was as though the clever creators had seen into my head. It is just the kind of thing that I would dream up to do: 52 weeks, 52 themes, 52 recipes.  Like most food bloggers I have a sizable collection of cookbooks, not all of which regularly see the light of day. So a challenge?  Bring it on.  I am a little late to the fray, entering in Week 3, however I will try and catch up on the first two weeks.

But Week 3 it is and the theme is Hors d’oeurves.  Could I be happier?  I adore creating, making, styling and eating finger food.  Whether you call them hors d’oeurves, canapes, appetisers, or finger food; these morsels of mastery, with a soupcon of style always tempt.

The hardest part for me was deciding what to cook. I have catered a number of cocktail parties and in the process have given my cookbooks a fairly rigorous work out in terms of hors d’oeurves.  I was determined not to repeat something I had already made.

I turned to one of my most recently acquired cookbooks, the updated Moorish by Greg and Lucy Malouf.  I have a couple of other books by them and never tire of Greg’s mouthwatering recipes from the Middle East and North Africa.

The dish:  Scallops with fried olive crumbs and sumac.

I love seafood – scallops are a favourite, and I am constantly intrigued by the sour spiciness of sumac.  The recipe is designed to be a starter, but I thought that if I returned the scallops to the beautiful shells from which they came, they would make a striking canape.

It is a relatively straightforward recipe and, unusual for me, I did not mess with it or change anything, except for accidentally buying green olives instead of black and changing the quantities to suit. I made quarter of the recipe to end up with 6 hors d’oeurves.  Below are the amounts in full.

Ingredients

1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
80ml olive oil
10 large black olives, pitted and finely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped capers
1 teaspoon sumac
1 tablespoon finely chopped thyme leaves
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil extra
24 scallops
salt and pepper
lemon wedges

Method

Preheat the oven to 180

Scatter the breadcrumbs on a baking tray and drizzle the olive oil over them.  I made my breadcrumbs just before I used them.  I used a dense wholemeal sourdough and left the crumbs fairly large.

Put in the oven and toast for 10 minutes until they become crunchy (I stopped at 5 because they were already very crunchy).  Stir them around from time to time to stop them burning.  Take them out of the oven and stir through the olives, capers, sumac, thyme and lemon zest.

To cook the scallops, heat the extra oil in a frying pan until it is smoking.  Carefully place the scallops in the pan, shake them around briefly, season with salt and pepper and let them sit for 30 seconds.  Turn them over and cook the other side for a further 30 seconds, by which time they should be nearly cooked through.  Remove them from the pan and set aside.

Wipe the pan out with a piece of paper towel and return to the heat, tip in the breadcrumb mixture and saute for a minute until the crumbs are heated through.

Place a scallop on a half shell and top with the crumbs.  Serve with a wedge of lemon.

These were a definite hit.  Amazing contrast of textures and flavours.  The soft yielding flesh of the scallop and the crunchy bite of the crumbs.  Sweet and salty and very moreish.

The beloved thought that the lemon zest and sumac in the crumbs gave it a sherbet like feel which was perfect against the sweetness of the scallops.

Will I make it again?  Absolutely!  I fear I will be in trouble if I don’t.