Scallops with Truffle Sauce and Crackling, and Herb-Crusted Rack of Lamb

Every now and then, we decide to cook something special just for ourselves and lay the table properly and almost pretend that we’re eating out, except of course for the fact that we’re cooking the food ourselves. It makes it a bit more special in many ways, but it does make photography a little more difficult having the table set with things that get in the way. Doing this is also a good excuse to cook scallops.

So… the starter was of course scallops. Kerri had found a “salad of truffle-dressed scallops” recipe by Gordon Ramsay, which we stole the dressing from. The dressing emulsified really thickly, becoming almost like a truffle mayonnaise. The scallops themselves we just seasoned and pan-fried quickly as usual. The interesting bit of this dish was pork crackling, which was an afterthought of Kerri’s that worked really well. We had rather a lot of pig skin left over from skinning a shoulder (for a recipe today…), we decided it would be a crime not to put it to good use and make it into crackling. The crackling did go well with the scallops; many pork-related things go well with scallops… chorizo, black pudding, pork belly and now crackling.

We had a lovely rack of Dorset lamb, which we cooked with a herb crust, which looked really good presented as a half guard of honour. We seared the lamb fat side down for a few minutes, then on the other side for a bit, then coated the fat side with Dijon mustard. We made the crust by adding chopped parsley, thyme, hazelnuts and garlic to breadcrumbs (salt and pepper too of course) and then pressing this into the mustard. This went into the oven for almost 20 minutes, then rested for a few while we sauteed some spring greens in garlic butter. The lamb turned out brilliantly. We were concerned that if we didn’t eat the fat, then we wouldn’t get any of the crust, but ended up scraping the crust off the fat bits and eating it with the meat and it was very tasty indeed. Served with the aforementioned spring greens and sauteed potatoes.

After this we found a little space for some cheese. A lovely ripe, earthy Brie, a delicious ewe’s milk cheese from Swaledale and Blacksticks Blue (which was a little old as we’ve had it for a while now). It struck me how the ewe’s milk cheese, tasted a little like roast lamb – I suppose the fattiness in the milk is quite similar to actual sheep fat.