Recommendations · Wine and food
Pan-fried scallops with Ayala Brut Majeur
Scallops given a crust in brown butter, on a cauliflower crème. Champagne is not a festive gesture here but a working choice: acidity and carbonation set against butter and sweet shellfish.
From the shelf
The bottle
Ayala Brut Majeur comes from Champagne in France and is made from 40 percent chardonnay, 40 percent pinot noir and 20 percent pinot meunier. The wine is at 12 percent ABV and sits on our shelf under the heading fresh and friendly. A brut champagne is dry; the second fermentation in the bottle gives the fine mousse and the bready note that comes with ageing on yeast.
The combination
Why this works together
Scallops are lightly sweet by nature, and brown butter lays a rich, nutty layer over that. The high acidity of champagne clears that butter away and the carbonation helps with it. At the same time, the bready, toasted note from lees ageing ties in with the nutty flavour of the brown butter and with the roasted hazelnut in the dish. The weight is right: both fine in build, neither dominating.
At the table
The dish
- Before 4 people
- Ready in 35 minutes
- Type starter
What you need
- 12 large scallops without roe, cleaned
- 1 small cauliflower of about 700 grams
- 250 millilitres whole milk
- 100 milliliters of whipping cream
- 70 grams butter
- 40 grams hazelnuts
- 1 tablespoon sunflower oil
- 1 lemon
- a few sprigs of chervil or parsley
- salt and freshly ground white pepper
How to make it
- Cut the cauliflower into small florets and set four small florets aside.
- Cook the rest of the cauliflower in the milk with a pinch of salt for fifteen minutes, very gently. Add a splash of water if needed so that the cauliflower is just covered.
- Drain and catch the cooking milk. Purée the cauliflower with the whipping cream and 20 grams of butter into a smooth cream and add as much cooking milk as needed until it is loose. Season with salt and white pepper and keep the cream warm.
- Toast the hazelnuts for four minutes in a dry pan, rub off the skins in a tea towel and chop them coarsely.
- Cut the four florets set aside into wafer-thin slices for the garnish.
- Pat the scallops very dry all around. This is the step that decides whether they brown or start to boil.
- Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan until it is almost smoking. Add the scallops with space between them and fry them for a minute and a half without touching them.
- Turn them, add the rest of the butter and fry for another minute while spooning the foaming butter over them. Take the pan off the heat as soon as the butter smells of nuts and is lightly brown.
- Season the butter with a few drops of lemon juice and a pinch of salt.
- Spoon the cream onto four warm plates, place three scallops on each, pour the brown butter over them and scatter the hazelnut, the thin cauliflower slices and the chervil over the top.
In the glass
Serving
Pour the champagne at 8 to 10 degrees into a tulip glass. With a dish containing butter, champagne performs better when it is not ice cold; too cold, and the bread and yeast aromas stay closed. Open the bottle just before the meal and then place it in a cooler.
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