As Nigella mentions at the start of this recipe, scallops have long been paired with other foods like bacon and chilli. It has even been paired with black pudding in a James Martin recipe. Nigella chose to use Chorizo as it is a combination of the bacon and chilli, being able to use the paprika-hot oil for cooking the scallops in. Nigella goes on to say… “It’s quicker than the speed of light to make and quite as dazzling”.
As I was making it for the two of us, I halved all the ingredients, with it being such a simple list of ingredients.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
110g Chorizo Sausage
400g Small Scallops (halve them to make 2 thinner discs if they are fat)
Juice of half a lemon
4 x 15ml tbsps chopped fresh Parsley
1 Slice the chorizo into rounds no thicker than 3mm.
2 Heat a heavy based frying pan and when hot, dry-fry the chorizo until crisped on each side – this should take no more than 2 minutes. The chorizo will give out plenty of its own oil.
3 Remove the chorizo to a bowl and fry the scallops in the chorizo oil for about 1 minute a side, until the scallops start turning a lovely orange colour.
4 Return the chorizo to the pan with the scallops, add the lemon juice and let it all bubble for a few seconds before arranging on a serving plate and sprinkling with parsley.
Enjoy!