Plated on a 28 cm stoneware plate, seen from above
Course
I
Scallop
celeriac, brown butter, sea buckthorn
Two hand-dived scallops, seared hard in foaming butter, on a spoon-swept celeriac purée with a split brown butter and five dots of sea buckthorn gel.
From
Hand-dived by Ross Findlay, Scapa Flow, Orkney
To drink
Domaine Laroche, Chablis Premier Cru 2022
How we make it
Ross dives for scallops on Mondays and Thursdays, so this course only runs when his boat has been out. We take them out of the shell at the pass, dry them for an hour in the fridge and sear them in a very hot pan, ninety seconds a side, with butter added at the end.
The celeriac is roasted whole in salt and blended with a little of its own cooking liquor. The brown butter is split on purpose with sorrel oil, so you get green and gold on the plate and both in each spoonful.
Sea buckthorn grows along the dunes at Gullane. We juice the berries in September and set the juice into a sharp gel, which cuts through the butter.
