Scallop & Seaweed Soup

I don't need to say that chicken broth, from bones, is one of the healthiest things you can eat. Packed full of goodness, all manner of micro-nutrients and all manner of health benefits.

Seaweed, too, with super-amounts of calcium and protein-wise, almost as rich as legumes.

Let's put the two together ...

Chicken broth is simply a case of gently simmering bones for several hours to soften and extract the goodness. As a side note, if the bones are soft enough to crush, you can make a paste out of it ... experiment with flavours, but mace is good and it's nice combined with chicken livers to make a pâté.

I digress ...

We have our stock. Seaweed, I buy dried. Reconstitute in the stock.

Now add flavours: fish sauce, chestnut mushrooms, thinly sliced carrot, garlic, ginger, chill and onion.

Just prior to serving, sauté off a couple of scallops each and drop into the middle.

Power Breakfast!

It doesn't get much better than this!

Liver, onion, bacon, seaweed and a MEGA-egg!

All power foods. Yes, bacon is a superfood ... honest.

Simply fry off some shredded onion in your favourite paleo fat - goose fat, for me.

Add in some reconstituted dried seaweed.

Toss in some lamb's liver and good outdoor reared bacon.

Sprinkle with chilli powder and serve over an egg.

How do you make an egg better? Make a MEGA-egg! Simply crack a fresh egg into collected egg whites (maybe you made some Hollandaise the other day) to make one huge egg.

That's it ... garnish with superfluous greenery if you like, otherwise dig in, be charged up and get about your day.

Keto-breakfasting at its very best!

Rock Pool

Conceptually, this dish is simply seaweed and shellfish ... yes, a rock pool.

I had some scallops. Your rock pool could include clams, winkles, prawns, langoustine, lobster, crab ... whatever ... I had some scallops.

The seaweed is from a bag of dried sea vegetables. There's all sorts of seaweed varieties in there which just need reconstituting in hot water.

Added to the hot water, it's a shame not to add in some sea salt, garlic, chillies, ginger, spring onions and some sliced mushrooms ... just regular chestnut, because that's all I had. Exotic would be nice, say, enoki or oyster.

Scallops just want colouring up in a little butter. Maybe a minute of cooking time, if that?

Serve up ...

Seaweed in the bowl, shellfish over the top ... oh, and an egg alongside.

Next time, rather than cobble this together out of some leftovers (I made too much seaweed for breakfast to eat with some black pudding*) I'll make this as a deliberate meal: oyster mushrooms, also some clams, scallops and langoustine. Lovely job.

* Black Pudding over a seaweed salad:

So, a free idea for something else to do with seaweed. Instead of black pudding, any old offal will do: liver, kidney, heart, all would be just perfect.

Smoked Salmon & Seaweed [Smoke on the Water]

I don't need to tell you about the health benefits of seaweed.

Aside from being probably the richest source of iodine, there's protection against cancer, detoxifying compounds, stress relievers, the list goes on ...

... all really convenient as dried.

We have seaweed soup as a starter a couple of times a week. Simply, seaweed, whatever protein is kicking about, be it some beef, chicken, fish, shellfish, whatever, some chilli, garlic, ginger and onion.

I begin with some shredded garlic, onion, ginger and chilli, add the seaweed, add water and leave it to stew in the heat for a few minutes. Thinly sliced protein is then added and the heat raised to cook it all through.

This is an excellent dish for really hot chillies! I usually go for half a Scotch Bonnet for two bowls; the more daring might try a whole one ... or even a snip of Ghost Chilli?

Tonight, the protein source was smoked salmon.

I've never done this combination before and was pleasantly surprised ...

... the soup went milky. No, smoky, which matched up with the flavour perfectly.

Great combination, and one I will certainly do again.

Sea Vegetable & Enoki Mushroom Soup

Here's a quick and easy way of getting your iodine, unsupplemented ...

Dried sea vegetables, procured from the supermarket Japanese section, steeped in bouillon (or bone broth if you have some) and spiced up with ginger and chilli. Make more interesting with some mushrooms - enoki variety in my case.

Mushrooms are packed with yet more antioxidants, making is one seriously heart-healthy starter.

Sea vegetables are not only a fantastic source of iodine, but possibly a unique source of vanadium. Reading up, vanadium appears to play a multi-faceted role in regulation of carbohydrate metabolism and blood sugar.

If somebody with a better grasp of biochemistry than me (that's everyone, then) can offer further insight, I'd be very grateful. Let's hear from you in the comments.

Nori Wrapped Smoked Salmon & Asparagus

Some thing are just so good together ...

For a quick bite, flavoursome and appealing to the eyes, try this.

Take some asparagus and immerse in boiling water for a couple of minutes. You still want the crunch, so not too long.

Immerse in chilled water to stop the cooking and keep the green colour.

Wrap each stalk with some smoked salmon and seal with a strip of nori.

That's Japanese seaweed sheets - there are so many health benefits to eating seaweed, and this gives a great way getting some in.

For primal folks happy with a little dairy, a tartare sauce made up with soured cream, lemon juice, minced capers and minced gherkin, perfect; more pure, perhaps an aioli?

Whatever you accompany with, it's all good. We had them as-was with a good heap of caviar alongside.

Beef, Spinach & Egg Broth

Leftovers are great!

All manner of fun, fast combinations can be made from leftovers and this was one such dish.

With some beef left over from the previous Sunday and some poaching liquor reserved from the previous day's salmon, I set about putting together a quick, nutritious broth.

Use whatever broth you have to hand - bone broth would be excellent, poaching liquor, or just make up a stock on the fly.

Finely slice some pieces of meat and drop these in - for me, it was beef ... which worked curiously well in the fish stock!

Add some bulk to the broth with seaweed, spinach, shredded greens, kale, something green anyway. I love the combination of beef and spinach, and spinach is right in season at the moment, so spinach it was.

Flavour up with finely sliced chilli and fresh ginger chopped into thin sticks.

Make up a Japanese omelette.

One egg, touch of water, whisked thoroughly and poured out into a frying pan to make a thin, almost crêpe-like omelette. Set aside.

Once the meat has softened, greens wilted and flavours combined, serve out into a bowl.

Roll up the omelette and slice up, dropping the little rolls into the broth.

Scallops on an Omelette Duvet

On an omelette duvet? Really?

We had a bit of fun on Mark's Daily Apple forums coming up with names for this dish. Scallops in Bed led to consideration of the bed clothes and one thing led to another ... Scallops on an Omelette Duvet.

What's involved?

Scallops in their shell, some seaweed, a Japanese omelette and a creamy sauce.

First, carefully part the scallop from its shell and wash the shell well. Remove the coral from the scallop and the membrane around the white part of the scallop. Clean off any membrane from the coral and wash both the coral and the white in clean water to get any sand out.

Prepare the seaweed. I buy a bag of dried sea vegetables which need nothing more than immersion in hot water for a few minutes. Once revitalised, drain off, retaining the water.

The sea(weed) water forms the basis of the sauce, into which finely chopped shallot, garlic and the scallop coral is placed and warmed through for a few minutes, puréed and passed through a fine sieve back into the saucepan. Add cream at this point, set to simmer and reduce.

Japanese omelettes are very thin - one large egg and a tablespoon of water is all that is needed. Whisk the egg thoroughly, almost to a foam. Pour into an 8" skillet for make a 6" omelette, flip when necessary to cook on both sides.

Place the omelette on a board and cover with the seaweed. Roll it up and slice into inch wide section, placing two or three sections into each scallop shell.

Reduce the sauce further. Now thickened, salt to taste, toss in some chopped coriander and pour over the omelette duvet.

Melt some butter in the skillet and colour the scallop whites. Place onto the duvet.

Serve in a shallow bowl.

Scallops with Sea Vegetables

Having boiled down the carcass of chicken or poussin from a previous meal and made beautiful healing broth, a second boiling can be made for a more delicate, subtle flavoured soup.

Something like this ...

Take some seaweed, packed with iodine, magnesium and other goodies which be elusive in paleo food sources picked from modern farming, and immerse in the broth.

Dried seaweed is perfectly good, and you will find bags of such produce in the World Foods section of your supermarket.

Once the seaweed has reconstituted, clean up a couple of scallops.

Scallops are a further source of magnesium, an excellent pack of vitamin B12 and concentrated source of selenium, particularly.

Warm a little butter in a frying pan until it just browns and drop the scallops in. Scallops should need little more than a half a minute on each side to just colour up and warm through, while retaining all the softness.

Set the scallops into the soup, maybe hinting with a drop of walnut oil for heady aromatics.

Drink deep and partake of all that nourishing goodness of rare micronutrients.

Laver Bread with Bacon, Eggs, Mushrooms and Asparagus

Laver Bread is a Welsh delicacy and often served as part of the Welsh breakfast along with bacon, eggs and cockles.

Made from boiled seaweed Laver Bread, or Bara Lawer in Welsh, is a fantastic source of iodine and best fresh from the local market if you live in Wales. We can enjoy this delicacy from tins and a good online supplier can be found here: http://www.laverbread.com - they sell cockles, too.

People who IF (that's "intermittent fasting") know that breakfast, or "break fast" can happen any time of the day and so a good Welsh breakfast in the evening is just the ticket.

Let's get our brecwast wedi ei goginio ...

Warm up your laver bread in a pan.

Get some bacon under the grille.

Fry up some thick slices of mushrooms in fat and fry a couple of eggs. Finally, fry off a few spears of asparagus.

Plate up - put the laver bread in a ramkin at one side of the plate and lay out the fried ingredients. Garnish with green leaves.

Scoop out the laver bread onto slices of mushroom and bacon, dip the asparagus in and into the yolk of the fried eggs. Blasus!