Recipe from How To Eat.

I’ve always thought of Scallops as the Marshmallows of the sea, obviously in appearance only, I couldn’t make a note on taste as I had never eaten them before this meal. I’m a fan of fish, so unlike previous makes like the black pudding hash, I wasn’t hesitant about making this one, the first thought that crossed my mind though was “now, where do I get scallops?”. My town unfortunately doesn’t have a fishmonger, nor a greengrocer, and if you politely ask for directions to a bakery you’ll be sent to the Gregg’s. ASDA and Sainsbury’s are my only options for fish in the town and ASDA was a no go for scallops and annoyingly Sainsbo’s looked like it would be a failure too. However I did manage to find a bag of frozen scallops which I purchased KNOWING it was a bit of a cop out, the recipe does state “you should aim to buy your scallops (unfrozen) from a fishmonger”, well I was letting the side down with two failed points right there in that sentence. The good thing about my purchase was that they could be defrosted and cooked almost as if they were fresh. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t know the difference and I’m not going to tell Nigella so it’s all good. I will however start a petition for a fishmonger in the high street of South Woodham Ferrers, I feel it’s definitely something the good people of SWF would be proud of.

ANYWAY, I got the scallops, I had the bacon, I text my friend Matt to ask what ‘seasoned flour’ meant, thinking it was a whole other style of flour to accompany Plain, Self-Raising, Bread etc, but really it’s as obvious as flour that has been seasoned… I added salt to a spoonful of flour, simple really when you think about it. 

My main concern with this meal was ensuring the scallops were cooked properly. As someone who has never cooked, nor eaten, a scallop I had no idea what it was supposed to look like, feel like, taste like, and I had a Washer Dryer arriving the next day! I would be livid if I missed that delivery because I was head-in-the-bowl chundering! 

This is the first time using the How To Eat book too and unlike almost all of Nigella’s subsequent books, this one does NOT contain pictures of the food. I turned to Google and typed in “can you die from undercooked scallops”, “do ao.com redeliver next day if you don’t answer the door because you have food poisoning” and then finally, “how to know when scallops are cooked”. It really does only take five minutes to cook scallops but I added on a couple of minutes more to be extra safe! 

I must have done it right because I had no digestive issues following the meal, and my new washing machine is spinning happily in the kitchen. All is well.