Tuesday 10 July 2012

Mushrooms stuffed with scallops


I came up with this dish the other day after randomly seeing a man cooking some of those little queen scallops on Countryfile (my Sunday television viewing is of the non-challenging variety). And having made Ottolenghi's stuffed mushrooms quite recently, I thought that I'd try and add some elements from that recipe too. Cheese and seafood is a bit of a contentious combination, but I thought that the mild, milkiness of Taleggio cheese went really well with both the mushroom base and the scallop filling. I served these mushrooms with some steamed broccoli and braised fennel. And though I was bit concerned that this wasn't going to be enough for dinner it actually was, with quite a small tub of queen scallops stretching to a dinner for two.

Recipe (enough for two):

4 large field mushrooms
3 medium spring onions, sliced
1 clove of garlic, chopped
Around 160g of queen scallops 
Light sprinkling of dried basil or 1tsp of freshly chopped basil leaves
1 tblsp double cream
Salt and pepper to season
Around 200g Taleggio cheese
A few tblsp olive oil

Remove the stalks from the mushrooms, chop them up quite finely, and put to one side. Heat a frying pan with a few tablespoons of olive oil and gently fry the four whole mushrooms until they are cooked through. This should take around 10minutes, but will depend on how large the mushrooms are. Once cooked, take the mushrooms out, and add a bit more oil. Gently fry the spring onions, mushroom stalks, and herbs. Once they've softened, increase the heat a bit, and add in the scallops and garlic. Cook for a few more minutes, season with salt and pepper and then take off the heat. Stir in the cream to bring everything together in a sort of sauce. Next, slice up the Taleggio, spoon the scallop mix into the mushrooms, and top with the cheese. You might not need all the cheese, but it's nice to be generous with it, so try and make sure all of the top of the mushrooms are covered. 
Put the mushrooms under a hot grill for around 5minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbling on top. Serve with some vegetables for a pretty speedy supper, while wondering if this might be the first Countryfile-Ottolenghi recipe mash-up.


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