Wind, driving rain and much lower temperatures make for perfect walking weather out in the hills. I got a reasonable ten miler in, came home soaked a grinning from ear to ear. Love it!
Dinner is Salmon & Scallops with an early autumn salad of butternut squash, boiled egg, tomato, beetroot and tenderstem broccoli, flavoured with dill, black pepper and sea salt. Fat? Goose fat for roasting and butter for sautéing.
Preparation
Oven on, set to 200C (400F?). Most of the work is in the prep.
Boil an egg each, peel, cool and slice. Set aside.
Slice a tomato. Set aside.
Peel and cube some beetroot - one medium per person is fine. Set aside.
Peel and cube some butternut squash and set aside for roasting.
Trim some tenderstem broccoli and set aside for steaming later.
Salad
The squash takes the longest, so pop the cubes onto an ovenproof plate with some good paleo fat. Goose fat, for me. This will need about half an hour in the oven.
Meanwhile, continue the prep ...
The cold ingredients can be arranged on the plate - get artistic.
The warm ingredients can be cooked through as required. Butternut squash in first, tenderstem broccoli on last, needing only a couple of minutes steaming.
Salmon & Scallops
Fillet and skin a good piece of salmon loin. Cut into good sized pieces.
Scallops, just clean up - remove the coral and membrane. You can reserve the corals for a sauce, which I completely forgot to cook but will put a few notes together at the end.
In butter, cook the salmon pieces through over a medium heat. Turn the salmon over once the pieces are coloured through up to about half way, noting how long it took. Turn and leave them for the same length of time.
Remember to steam the tenderstem broccoli.
Retrieve the salmon and place on a piece of kitchen towel to rest while you sauté the scallops. Serve out the broccoli now and place the salmon on the plate as the crowning piece.
Sauté the scallops in butter - one minute, then flip over for large scallops, 30 second for small.
Push the scallops in between the other ingredients on the plate. Again, be artistic.
Sauce
Not quite an afterthought - more that I simply forgot to make one. What a ditz!
The sauce should be prepared and just kept warm before cooking the fish through ...
Using the corals from the scallops, a little double cream, just a dash of mustard and a little lemon juice, blend together and warm through very gently in a pan. It's a sort of velouté, I guess.
Yes, the dish was a bit bland, dry and really lacking something ... the sauce. Doh! The sauce!
Next time ...
