Gordon Ramsay’s scallop salad is his pan-fried scallops with crunchy apple salad from Ultimate Cookery Course (2012), also on his website. Six large scallops are seared in a smoking-hot pan, then set around a pile of lamb’s lettuce and Granny Smith matchsticks dressed with lemon and olive oil. It takes about 10 minutes and serves 2.
This is the dish he starts pan-frying with. In his video he calls it his first pan-fried dish, and he points out that scallops have firm, white, sweet flesh that cooks in minutes. The book has you make the salad first, so once the scallops go in, you can stand over them.
You can watch the whole recipe in his scallops with crunchy apple salad video on YouTube, which runs under 2 minutes. Watch how he fills the pan, starting at the top and going clockwise, so you always know which scallop to turn first.
Gordon Ramsay’s Seared Scallops and Apple Salad
Course: SaladsCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy2
5
minutes5
230
kcalGordon Ramsay’s scallop salad recipe from Ultimate Cookery Course: seared scallops with a lemony apple and lamb’s lettuce salad. These amounts serve 2.
Ingredients
- For the scallops:
1 tablespoon olive oil, for frying
6 large scallops, cleaned
juice of ½ lemon
- For the salad:
1 sharp apple, such as Granny Smith
2 handfuls of lamb’s lettuce (mâche)
juice and zest of ½ lemon
olive oil, to drizzle
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
- Salad: Peel and core the apple and cut it into julienne strips. Mix it with the lamb’s lettuce and season with salt and pepper. Add most of the lemon zest, keeping a little back for the garnish, then squeeze over the lemon juice. Drizzle with olive oil and mix well.
- Heat: Heat a large nonstick frying pan over high heat until it’s smoking hot, then add the tablespoon of olive oil. Lay the scallops on a board, pat them dry with paper towels and season one side with salt and pepper.
- Sear: Think of the pan as a clock face and add the scallops one by one, seasoned side down, in clockwise order. Fry for 1 to 2 minutes until golden brown. Season the top side, flip them in the same order and cook the second side the same way.
- Finish: Squeeze the half lemon over the scallops and give the pan a good shake. Tip everything onto a plate lined with paper towels, which stops the cooking at once and soaks up the extra oil.
- Serve: Divide the salad between 2 plates and arrange the scallops around each pile. Scatter over the rest of the lemon zest and serve immediately.
Notes
- Calories are about 230 a serving, and about half of them come from the olive oil.
FAQs
How do I know the scallops are cooked?
When the outside is well browned and the center is just turning from translucent to opaque. That takes 1 to 2 minutes a side, and any longer than 2 minutes on each side makes them tough.
So stay at the stove and keep track of the order they went in. That’s the whole point of the clock face.
Why won’t my scallops brown?
Usually the pan isn’t hot enough, or the scallops are wet. Pat them completely dry, and wait until the pan is smoking hot before the oil goes in.
Lay each scallop in gently instead of throwing it, as he does in his perfect scallops video on YouTube, a Cookalong Live clip. Then roll the pan around rather than tossing it.
Should I season both sides before they go in?
No, season one side on the board and the other side in the pan, just before you flip them. Be generous, though.
In that Cookalong Live clip he says you lose about 30% of the seasoning the minute it hits the pan.
What scallops should I buy?
Large ones, cleaned, as the recipe asks, and hand-dived if you can find them. Those are the ones he cooks in the Cookalong Live clip, and he calls their flavor extraordinary.
If they’re sold out of the shell, check they aren’t frozen. His warning in A Chef for All Seasons (2000) is that frozen ones taste watery.
How do I cut the apple into matchsticks?
Peel and core it, then cut it in half or into quarters and lay each piece flat side down. Slice it about 5 mm (¼ inch) thick, then cut the slices into matchstick-size strips.
Zaytouna Studio Team is the kitchen team behind Chef Ramsay Recipes. We cook Gordon Ramsay’s recipes from his cookbooks and videos in a home kitchen and write them up for yours, with US and metric measurements.