Last night we had some left over black pudding and had bought a frozen bag of Queen Scallops from Waitrose which were much more reasonably priced than hand dived king scallops from the fishmonger. As we have used Queenie’s in our fish pie previously we thought we would try them in the classic dish you see above. Scallop’s, Black Pudding with Minted Pea Purée. I always think when you order this dish in a restaurant they are really tight with the puree, you tend to get a smear that fades to nothing or a tiny dollop. That’s why we prefer making it ourselves, more puree and extra black pudding! Paulie has mastered the texture and we tried something new tonight as we forgot fresh mint. Instead Paulie used mint sauce. I know fresh is superior in most instances, but I must say this time the jarred variety wins hands down. The mint sauce made it so tasty and brought out the sweetness of those lovely peas. The only thing I missed a little from the hand dived king scallops is the orange roe, as we do like to eat this part, but for a midweek dinner this was delicious and yes I licked my plate and ate the puree left in the pan!

Ingredients

• 16 queen scallops
• 10 slices of black pudding
• 2 shallots – chopped
• 300g frozen peas
• 2 x tbsp mint sauce
• 200ml vegetable stock
• 2 x 25g unsalted butter
• seasoning to taste

Method

1. Heat 25g butter in a medium saucepan and sweat the shallots for 5 minutes on a low heat
2. Tip in the frozen peas, turn up the heat and cook for 2 minutes till hot
3. Next add the stock, bring to boil and then simmer with the lid on for 5 minutes – we don’t add salt but you can at this stage if you want to
4. Next tip the peas mixture into a blender. You can do this straightaway or you can let the mixture cool. If you do it straightaway be careful that you don’t scald yourself!
5. Blending the purée is a matter of personal choice. We like ours with a bit of bite in it but you can have it as a smooth purée if you want in which case you need to blend it for longer
6. Next put purée into a clean saucepan and warm through. Stir in the mint sauce, we used 2 tablespoons but strength of the mint varies from brand to brand so we suggest that you add a bit at a time and taste till you find the strength that you want
7. Turn saucepan to lowest setting, pop on a lid and keep warm whilst you prepare the scallops and black pudding
8. Heat the other 25g of butter in a large frying pan till it’s hot but not burning. We add a glug of Olive Oil as well as it stops the butter getting too hot
9. Put the scallops into the pan individually face down and cook for 1 minute on each side
10. Next add the black pudding into the same pan that the scallops are in and cook on each side for about 30 seconds or longer if you prefer
11. Add a couple of nice dollops of the pea purée to a serving bowl and then pile the black pudding and the scallops on top. Pour any of the melted butter mixture over and serve immediately!