Darlings,
If you’re new to the Wylde tribe, allow me to introduce myself.
I’m Reynard, a fox so silver that I’m positively platinum 🤩
These days I’m a food freedom fighter, leading Wylde Market's guerrilla battle against UPFs and Big Food, but I’ve had plenty of other jobs too. I’ve been a tank commander, a stunt fox, a second-hand car dealer, represented Team GB in Olympic Hide-and-Seek (Beijing 2008, silver medallist – we was robbed, but the less said about that the better, lest it provoke yet another international incident….), a tiffin-wallah riding the trains of Delhi, a knight in white satin, a pigeon-fancier, an intelligence agent, an ice trucker, a police frogman, Geoffrey Archer’s typist (don’t ask), a cricket commentator, a Blue Peter badge winner, a banderillero in Sevilla, a fluffer in Chatsworth, California, a fashion photographer, a roadie for indie punkster band Carter USM and the captain of a Royal Navy destroyer.
A colourful life, you might say. But my first love, darlings, is cooking. You see, in 1994, just as our late Queen was opening the Eurotunnel with François ‘Le Sphinx’ Mitterand, yours truly slipped past the gaze of the world’s media and scampered under the sea to France. Heading straight for Paris, I knew what I had to do. To learn to cook in the kitchen of Pascal LaFontaine, at that point Paris’ most revered chef on the Rive Gauche underground scene.
Pascal was not, it is fair to say, a forgiving or generous man. Or an especially nice one. But my golly, darlings, could he cook. His twist on the chateaubriandwas to die for (and I think that did actually happen on at least one occasion: you know how the French are when it comes to queuing, darlings…..), but in all honesty the single biggest lesson I learned there was about scallops.
Because Pascal, mes choux, was as famous for his coquilles St Jacquesstarters as he was his glorious chateaubriands. The problem was that Pascal, being Pascal, assumed that everyone could cook them just like him. They say one learns from one’s mistakes. Well, when it came to those coquilles St Jacques, this silver fox made plenty.
I lost track, darlings, of the amount of pots and pans that were thrown at me, the Gallic insults that were hurled. But my goodness, I learned. Because there are only so many times you can hear the words:
Il faut les BIEN sécher, espèce d’idiot anglais!
before one registers that one really must ensure that scallops are absolutely bone dry before going in the pan.
Wetness, darlings, is the enemy of crispiness.
So here is my Parisian learning on scallops, distilled for your convenience.
- Buy hand dived scallops, like Ali’s. Anything else simply wrecks the oceans, and that just shouldn’t be acceptable to any thinking fox. Or human. Just ask my good friend David.
- Pat the scallops dry. Really dry. Pascal dry.
- Whisper them with Tim’s flaky seaweed salt.
- Heat a slug of Susana’s olive oil in a heavy pan until it shimmers but doesn’t smoke, darlings.
- Now, being mindful of what I call ‘pan politics’ (scallops really don’t like to be overcrowded – too many too close together and they’ll steam like grumpy commuters on the Northern Line in June), place your scallops into the pan in a clock formation.
- Cook each for a minute or so, before using tongs to turn it over.
- Add a knob of butter and as it foams, use it to baste the scallops as you cook them for a further minute or so before removing them from the pan.
- Nota Bene: in terms of cuisson, darlings, you’re looking for them to be springy to the touch, not mushy or firm.
Serve with an ice cold glass of Amber and Chris’ organic rosé, and perhaps a few well dressed mixed leaves from Sam and Sarah and Bob, as Pascal LaFontaine would never, ever have said, est ton oncle.
Cheerio for now, darlings.
R.
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