Tip the scales: Yotam Ottolenghi's recipes for sea bass, cod and scallops | Food (2024)

Now, this may sound a random set of associations, but Venus would never have risen from the shell of awinkle or whelk, would she? Only the fan-like scallop was deemed graceful enough by Botticelli. The scallop's taste is, accordingly, as sweet and tender as its nature would suggest, and less is very much more when it comes to cooking it: yes, you can do all sorts with a scallop, but something this delicate and creamy really needs little more than a quick sear in the pan for the sugars to caramelise and the flesh to brown.

Sea bass with lentils and pancetta

Serves four.

250g puy lentils
40g unsalted butter
75ml olive oil
1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into 5mm dice
1 large onion, peeled and cut into 5mm dice
4 sticks celery, trimmed and cut into 5mm dice
300g pancetta, cut into 5mm dice
1 tbsp picked thyme leaves
¾ tsp ground turmeric
2 bay leaves
Salt and white pepper
400ml vegetable stock
150g creme fraiche
1 tsp white-wine vinegar
8 small sea bass fillets, trimmed, pin-boned and skin lightly scored
1½ tbsp lemon juice
10g picked parsley, roughly chopped

Put a large saute pan on medium-high heat and add the butter and two tablespoons of oil. Once the butter has melted, add the diced veg and fry for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until caramelised and soft. Add 250g pancetta, fry for five minutes more, then add the lentils, thyme, turmeric, bay and half ateaspoon of white pepper. Cook for two minutes, stir in the stock, creme fraiche and vinegar, and taste – add aquarter-teaspoon of salt, if needed (it will depend on how salty the pancetta is). Set aside in a warm spot.

Put a large frying pan on medium-high heat and add the remaining pancetta and oil. When the bacon starts to sizzle, lay in the fish fillets skin side down. Fry for three to four minutes, then flip and cook for aminute on the flesh side. Spoon the lentils into four shallow bowls and lay two fillets on top of each serving. Finish with a drizzle of lemon juice and a sprinkle of parsley.

Seared scallops with cauliflower and Jerusalem artichoke

Serves four.

1 medium cauliflower, broken into small florets
2 long strips shaved lemon skin
5 sprigs fresh thyme
5 jerusalem artichokes, peeledandcut on an angle into3cmx 2cmlengths
Salt and ground white pepper
350ml chicken stock
60g unsalted butter
20 king scallops
15g parsley, chopped
15g tarragon, chopped
3 tbsp creme fraiche

Put the cauliflower, lemon skin, thyme, artichoke and stock in amedium pan with a quarter-teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil, turn the heat to medium-high and cook for eight minutes, until the vegetables are just cooked through; add water if needed, so the veg are mostly immersed in liquid. Drain, discard the lemon zest and thyme, and return thecauliflower and artichoke to the pan. Add 20g of the butter, half a teaspoon of salt and aquarter-teaspoon of ground pepper. Roughly mash – you want some texture – and set aside.

For the sauce, put the oil in asmall pan on a medium heat. Add the chilli flakes, cumin, garlic and green chilli, and fry for two minutes, until the garlic is just cooked. Add the lemon juice and take off the heat.

Return the mash to a medium heat and stir through 10g each of parsley and tarragon, and the creme fraiche. Heat for two minutes, just to warm through.

Return the sauce to a medium heat, add the remaining tarragon and a tablespoon of water, and cook for a minute, just to warm through.

Spread the mash out on four plates. Place five scallops on top of each serving and spoon over the sauce. Finish with a sprinkle of parsley and serve.

Sticky rice fishcakes with red pepper and tamarind sauce

½ tsp white peppercorns, crushed
2 spring onions, trimmed and finelychopped
1 stick lemongrass, outer leaves discarded, the rest finely chopped
1 large garlic clove, peeled andcrushed
35g coriander leaves, chopped
1 tsp finely grated lime zest
2 tbsp sunflower oil, for frying

For the sauce
30g tamarind block
1 large red pepper
1 large red chilli
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and finely sliced
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
3cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
20g coriander stalks, chopped
10g palm sugar
Salt

Heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Put the pepper and chilli on an oven tray and roast for 10 minutes. Take out the chilli and roast the pepper for 20 minutes more, until the skin blackens. Put the pepper and chilli in a bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to cool. When cool enough to handle, peel and discard and skins and seeds. Set the flesh aside.

Put the olive oil in a medium frying pan on a medium-high heat. Fry the onion for 10 minutes, stirring, until starting to soften. Add the garlic and ginger, fry for five minutes, then tip into a food processor. Add the tamarind water, pepper and chilli flesh, coriander stalks, sugar and half a teaspoon of salt, and blitz smooth.

Heat the oil in a large sauté pan on a medium-high heat, then add half the patties and fry for eight minutes, turning halfway through, until golden on both sides. Transfer to awarm plate and repeat with the remaining fishcake mix. Serve hot with the sauce spooned alongside.

• Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghi and Nopi in London.

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