Instructions
When a man is more than six and a half feet tall, it’s a little bit galling to finally realise that big is not always better.
There are advantages in scale, it’s true – my petite wife always has someone to get that blanket down from the top shelf. But for decades I have bumped my head as a daily ritual, struggled to get into cars, and endured raucous groans of discontent each time I go to a movie. As for airplane seats? Forget about it!
In culinary matters this idea takes on a whole new meaning. After all, which is better value – the smaller boutique meal made from the finest ingredients, or the all-you-can-eat adventure at a joyless buffet? I guess it really depends what kind of mood you’re in. Feeling artistic? – go for the luxury. Got an appetite? – hit the buffet.
Many ingredients also come in a range of sizes, due both to cultivation and variety. For me, that’s a key beauty of cooking with natural ingredients: they’re constantly different and endlessly exciting.
Take shellfish for an example. In oysters you can go from the miniature Rock oysters, to the large Pacifics, and even to the oversized Angassi variety from Tasmania. You’ll find plenty of heated opinion about which is better – especially from the Rock oyster aficionados. But in the end it is, like art appreciation, all in the eye (or mouth) of the beholder.
With scallops it’s exactly the same. We have a dozen or more varieties found throughout Australian waters, but there’s only two main commercially-harvested species.
The curved shell varieties with the classic ‘scalloped’ shell are inventively called ‘commercial’ scallops. They’re found mostly in the cooler southern waters, especially around Tasmania and South Australia. While the scallops themselves are available in a range of sizes, their large colourful shells are distinctively beautiful.
From our warmer northern oceans we find the flat-shelled ‘saucer’ scallop. Hervey Bay in Queensland produces the best of these, famously in an elegantly-small size, usually no more than 8cm across. The meat is commensurately diminutive, and these make the most gorgeous canapés. Seared lightly, and dressed with a lightly aromatic herb sauce, it is the essence of the sea.
And to be honest, so what if they’re smaller. A big guy like me can always shell out for a couple extra!
Seared scallops with salsa verde and beetroot