Real Surf and Turf
August 28, 2008
Everybody is doing it at the moment – restaurants accross the globe are serving up plates combining the three following ingredients – black pudding, scallops and apple. Type the three ingredients into google and the recipes are abundant. We had an amazing five course meal at the Hotel des Elmes in Banyuls-sur-mer back in June which included a course of three delectable little towers of boudin noir and scallops topped with pommes julienne. Over the summer I replicated the meal with Scallops and black pudding from Swansea market which was just as nice even if it wasn’t by the Mediterranean sea in the hot sun!
Towers seem to be the in-thing to do – they’re simple, but look good. To break away from the norm, I tried another variation the other night. Rich declared that he wanted surf and turf on the barbecue, so I went to the supermarket to get steak and prawns and came back with 6 Scallops and a length of boudin noir instead! I cut a big apple into quarters and then halved the quarters making big chunks of apple and threaded these along with the scallops and thick (about 2cm) slices of boudin onto 2 skewers (Apple, boudin, scallop, Apple etc finishing with apple) and cooked them on a very hot barbecue for 2-3 minutes each side. Delicious!
I feel the need to add a cautionary note here – French boudin noir is far crumblier than Welsh Black Pudding from Swansea market – the latter I think would work better on a BBQ – we had to be very careful not to lose any boudin through the grill!
