Purée de celeri rave, fenouil braisé à l’orange et St Jacques au vinaigre de mangue

 

I haven’t celery rave in a long time, for no specific reason, maybe because I don’t enjoy peeling it. is that a good enough reason? maybe not.

In France we eat celery rave a lot, mainly in rémoulade. Rémoulade is grated celery with mayonnaise, so a big word for something quite simple. In this recipe, I combined it with the sweetness of fennel and scallops.

I have noticed that many Americans don’t like fennel nor liquorice, so if you belong to the fennel-haters category, you can replace it with thinly sliced zucchini and instead of fennel, you can use cumin seeds.

I have been making some mango vinegar and playing with it on some recipes other than salads, and I really like it on seafood.

When cooking the scallops, always add salt at the end, otherwise if added while cooking, the scallops won’t turn brown and will form water. Also, when browning scallops, make sure the butter won’t burn. If it does burn, you need to discard it and use fresh butter. Or alternatively, filter the sauce at the end, so that the sauce looks smooth with no butter residue.

Ingredients for 2

For the celery root purée

  • 2 small heads of celery, peeled and diced (1 inch)
  • 1 tsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp onion, chopped
  • vegetable broth
  • 1 tbs heavy cream
  • salt and pepper

For the braised fennel

  • 1 tbs onion, finely diced
  • 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1 large fennel bulb, shaved with a mandoline
  • juice of 1 orange
  • salt and pepper

For the scallops

  • about 5 grams butter
  • 4 large scallops (fresh not frozen)
  • 1 tsp honey
  • 3 tbs mango vinegar
  • Fleur de sel

Preparation

For the celery root purée

Heat olive oil in a pan and add onion, let them sweat and add celery root. Cover with broth and let cook until absorbed and until celery is tender. You might need to use more broth in the process. Adjust with salt. Mash with a potatoe masher and add cream. Stir well and keep mashing until smooth and homogeneous.

For the braised fennel

Heat olive oil in a pan. Add onions and fennel and let it cook until fragrant but not until the onion turns golden brown.Add fennel and orange juice, salt and pepper. Cover and let cook at slow heat until orange juice absorbed and fennel tender. Keep warm.

For the scallops

Melt butter in a pan. Add scallops and cook on both sides until golden brown, about 2 minutes each side. Remove from pan and keep warm. Add honey, stir well and deglaze with mango vinegar and stir well.

Using a rind, place purée at the bottom of the plate. Add fennel on top and scallops at the end. Drizzle scallops with fleur de sel. Pour sauce around or on top of scallops and serve hot. You might want to have your plates warmed up before plating.