Life is full of coincidences. One day my friend Jeroen mentioned sorrel during our wonderful dinner at Bord’Eau, and then the next day I noticed sorrel available at a local supermarket. After deciding to buy it, I had to pick something to prepare. Sorrel can be used for salads, soups, or sauces. As a sauce it is usually used for seafood, and that is what I decided upon. I thought it would pair nicely with radishes, and so Scallops with Radishes and Sorrel Sauce it would be. Since I had some pancetta as well, I decided to use a bit of that for some additional flavor. I was happy with the result and really liked the flavor combination. I will definitely make something like this again. If you can’t find sorrel you can also use the greens of the radishes instead, but it won’t have the special tart flavor of the sorrel.
Here’s what I did…
Ingredients
For 1 serving (it was just me as Kees was away for business)
5 fresh sea scallops, about 140 grams (.3 lbs)
1 bunch radishes, about 200 grams of radishes without the greens (.44 lbs)
30 grams (1 oz) fresh sorrel leaves
15 grams (1/2 oz) pancetta, minced
250 grams (.55 lbs) potatoes
60 ml (1/4 cup) dry white wine
250 ml (1 cup) fish stock or vegetable stock
30 grams (2 Tbsp) butter
salt and freshly ground pepper
clarified butter or olive oil for browning the scallops
Preparation
Clean the radishes and cut into quarters.
Boil or steam the potatoes with a bit of salt.
Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the pancetta. Sauté for a few minutes or until the pancetta turns slightly golden.
Add the radishes and sauté for a minute longer.
Add the white wine and cook over high heat, stirring, until most of the wine has evaporated.
Add the fish stock.
Cook over medium heat, uncovered, until the radishes are tender but firm to the bite and the sauce has thickened, about 15 minutes.
Roughly chop the sorrel leaves.
Add the sorrel leaves to the radishes.
Turn off the heat and stir until the sorrel has wilted. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Brown the scallops in very hot clarified butter, about 1 minute per side. Do not overcook the scallops. Browning in clarified butter works best, otherwise use oil. Do not use regular butter, as it will burn.
Season the scallops with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Serve everything on a warm plate.
Stefan's Gourmet Blog 
Beautiful dish and such a great idea…we are sharing this with everyone…
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Thanks 🙂
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Beautiful presentation. Your blog is always neat and concise and an inspiration for mine.
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Thanks Clayton 🙂
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Really lovely Stefan. I particularly like the serendipity in the introduction.
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Thanks Conor 🙂
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Lovely dish and interesting use of ingredients. I’ve never cooked a radish before, I imagine this tames the flavour? What would you say sorrel is similar to?
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Cooking radishes does indeed tame them: their flavor becomes more rounded. Can’t think of any tart greens right now that resemble sorrel. It’s NOT like spinach, arugula or cabbage. Perhaps chard or greens from radishes, but not really. You’ll just have to try for yourself 😉
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I have been using radish greens (when they are in good shape) for a couple of years now. Living in a small town we don’t get a lot of other choices. I find them delicious a bit tart, but a real nice addition to many soups and stews. Not good raw but then I don’t even like Arugula. 😉
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Yes, I echo ‘Bunny Eats design’ comments: I also have not cooked radish and beginning to read the post wondered whether the strong radish flavor would allow the scallop to shine . . . would really like to taste that finished radish flavour: only one way to do that 🙂 !
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The scallops, cooked radish, sorrel and tiny bit of pancetta really go well together. I also have recipes for pasta and risotto with cooked radishes on my blog, also using the greens.
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Your post seems to have drawn a chorus of “I have not cooked radishes …” and you can add me to the choir. For the last 3 weeks, I’ve gone to the farmers market to buy them but got distracted by everything else and returned home without them. I can also get sorrel there, too, but getting good quality scallops at a price that won’t require a loan will be the hard item to find. Seeing yours perfectly sautéed in the pan, Stefan, followed by the dish’s beautiful presentation, makes me want to find them. With or without the scallops, this is the Spring I try cooked radishes. Thanks for the added inspiration!
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Thanks John. Most scallops here actually come from the US and are not as expensive as eel (about $20/lb), but certainly not cheap either. Look forward to seeing what you’ll do with the radishes 🙂
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Sounds delicious! Very wise use of sorrel 😉
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Thanks 🙂
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Lovely meal, Stefan. Baby Lady & I love cooked radishes. It definitely tones them done and makes them sweeter.
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