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Scallop Tartare with Salsa Sorbet

scallop tartare, cascabel cured & raw
salsa sorbet
avocado mousse
microwave beet chips
key lime, spanish olive oil, cascabel flakes, thai chili flowers

People often talk about how you should cook by feel. To qualify as a competent chef, you should detach yourself from your thermometer and use only your pinky and your lower lip. You should know that your chocolate needs more heat to have that perfect snap. These people are elitist self-righteous toque-toting jerks. (Actually, I’m just upset that I can’t temper chocolate right; many of them are in fact quite nice, and some of them don’t even wear toques.)

If you truly want a superior and consistent product, you can’t rely on eighteenth century techniques and recipes. In the postmodern pantry, there is only room for SCIENCE.

This goal of this recipe is to document a preparation that, to my knowledge, has not yet been documented, and to exhibit it by pairing two unique parties together: scallop tartare and salsa sorbet. Although the varieties of salsa are endless and would probably demand more thorough research prior to including it in a preparation that goes against everything salsa stands for, the recipe that follows uses a loose adaptation of it that fits the needs of the tartare, and includes peaches to serve as a bridge between the sweetness of the scallop and the salsa’s harsher flavors.

I want 1 kg of sorbet. Salsa isn’t super acidic, so we can use between 40 % and 60 % salsa in the sorbet. I’ll shoot for 50 %. The body of it is mostly tomato and similar fruit/vegetables, so we can assume that the salsa’s average sugar content is about 3 % and total dissolved solids are about 16%.

Next constraint is sugar. We want to keep that as low as possible, and the minimum for it to be scoopable is 25 %. Tomato is 3 %, so we can subtract that from the 25 % which leaves us with 22 % added sugar, which we can divide into a combination of isomalt (which is less sweet), trimoline and glucose (which improve texture), and plain old sugar. I don’t have trimoline. So we’ll go with 140 g sugar, 40 g glucose, and 40 g isomalt. As a rule of thumb, “alternative” sugars shouldn’t exceed 4 % of the recipe each.

Total dissolved solids should be between 31 % and 36 %. This would normally include just fruit solids and sugars. To up this, we could use powdered milk. But then we’d have salsa and ricotta sorbet. So while not dissolved per se, we can make up for this difference with olive oil. (36 % x 1000 g) – [(25 % x 1000 g) + (16 % x 500 g)] = 30 g of oil. (Going closer to the upper bound will compensate in part for the lack of sugar and the low dissolved solids of the other fruit/vegetables of the salsa.)

Since the amount of sugar is on the lower end, we’ll compensate with some stabilizer. Usually .4 % is enough, but since this sorbet is at its bare minimum sugar concentration, we’ll up that to .7 %, or 6 g of stabilizer and 1 g of emulsifier. We’ll just tweak the usual formula to include soy lecithin and xanthan gum. So 1.8 g gelatin, 1.2 g carboxymethylcellulose, 1.0 g lecithin, and 1.5g each xanthan and guar.

4.0 g salt would also be nice. We can subtract this from the oil.

And we make up for the difference in water! This gives us:

So, heat the water to 40 °C and add the sugar, glucose, isomalt, stabilizer mix, and salt. Make sure that all the dry ingredients were well mixed, or else the stabilizer will clump. Continue heating until the mixture reaches 80 °C, and hold it for two minutes to allow the stabilizer to hydrate. Chill the mixture in an ice bath and age for 4 hours. Add the salsa and age, again, overnight. Churn and reserve.

Roast the garlic with salt and oil in aluminum foil at 400 °F until it is golden brown, about 45 minutes. Pan roast the chilies. Blend everything and strain.

Pasteurize the avocado by holding it in a 43 °C water bath for 2 hours. Blend with salt. Reserve.

Prepare the cure by grinding the cascabel into the salt and sugar. Liberally coat the scallops with the cure and reserve in the fridge for one hour before rinsing the cure and patting dry.

Slice the beets very finely (less than a millimeter thick, ideally) using a mandoline. Blanch in salted water until just barely warmed through. Pat dry, then place on a silpat and dry in a convection oven or food dehydrator set to 150 °F for 40 minutes, flipping them halfway through. Once cooled, place on a plate and microwave on HIGH for 40 seconds in 10 or 20 second pulses, flipping as needed. Discard burnt beet chips.

Slice the scallops into thin slices against the grain. Draw a line of avocado mousse on a long narrow plate and place the scallops over it, alternating between the cured and uncured scallops. Pour key lime juice and olive oil over the scallops and garnish with the pepper flakes and flowers. Place a very small quenelle of salsa sorbet in the center of the line and garnish the tartare with beet chips. Serve immediately.

© jonathan khouzam 2008/2009