Scallops in Kimchi Broth, with Pickled Habanero & Shallot

This recipe seems really decadent and fancy, doesn’t it?  Or like it might be hard to find these ingredients at your local grocery store?  Well guess what, it’s totally not!  I partnered up with Milk & Eggs to bring you this amazing date night recipe.  Milk & Eggs is a food delivery service that sends you farm fresh produce right to your door!  Heres a little more about this amazing company.

Their produce goes fresh from farms to you. Fresher foods = better health!  Prices are always low because there is never any waste, inventory, middlemen, or complicated distribution centers.  You can order once or subscribe to get weekly or bi-weekly produce. Subscriptions can be updated, paused, or changed at anytime. And you save on the process of ordering, buying, and picking up groceries!  They also carry so many amazing vegan products, like different vegan milks, yogurt, cheeses, broths, pastas, jerky, dumplings, etc. on top of a huge selection of the most delicious produce!

Like really, who doesn’t want amazing vegan foods delivered right to their door?  Especially when you can make fancy recipes like this using their products!  Big thanks to Milk & Eggs for sending me the ingredients needed for this recipe, and a few others (which will be up soon, so stay tuned!).  Definitely go check them out if you are interested in getting some farm fresh produce and vegan products delivered to your door!  And you can check them out at www.milkandeggs.com

This recipe might seem really complicated or like there’s a lot going on, but I promise that it’s super easy to accomplish.  So let’s start off with our pickling brine for the habanero peppers & shallots.  This is a really easy brine to make, but gives such a unique and warming flavor.  For this, add some water, red wine vinegar, rice vinegar, cane sugar, sea salt, pink peppercorns, cardamom pods, star anise, cinnamon stick, juniper berries, and whole cloves to a pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and allow to cook for 10-15 minutes until the sugar and salt has dissolved and the flavors have infused.  Once everything is good to go, strain your pickling spices from the liquid, and set aside while you prep what you’re actually pickling!

So as far as the actual pickles go, we’re using habanero peppers & shallots.  Both of these ingredients you can order from Milk & Eggs too!  The habanero peppers, even though they’re spicy, have a really floral note that plays well with this pickle brine.  And the shallots become so sweet and crunchy when pickled, and are a bit milder than a pickled onion which works well because we don’t want to over power the dish with a strong onion-y bite.  Slice these as thin as you can possibly get them, and then add them into separate mason jars.  Pour your strained hot pickle brine over top, cover with a lid, and place in the fridge for at least a half hour.  Ideally, you’d do this the day before so they can pickle overnight.  The longer you let them pickle, the better they’ll be!  Also, there will definitely be extras of these, but SAVE THEM!  You can use them on loads of other things!  They’re great on burgers, sandwiches, pizza… the possibilities are endless with these babies!

Next up, we’re gonna work on our beautiful little vegan scallops.  To make these, you’re going to need a broth to help infuse some “flavors of the sea” into your mushrooms!  Add your water, miso paste, lemongrass, seaweed, shallot, lemon & lime, sea salt, and mirin to a pot over medium heat.  Bring to a low boil, and allow to cook for about 10 minutes to infuse all the flavors.

For the actual scallops, we’re going to use these big beautiful babies… King Oyster Mushrooms.  Now it’s very important to get King Oyster Mushrooms that have the tall, thick stems like this, and not the delicate Oyster Mushrooms.  They’re very different and Oyster Mushrooms won’t really work for this recipe because they don’t have that thick stem!  Luckily, you can find these King Oysters on Milk & Eggs!  Simply top and tail your mushrooms (making sure to save the mushroom caps for your broth later on), and slice the stems into about 3/4″-1″ thick discs, mimicking a scallop!  Place your mushroom scallops into the broth pot, and if you have a steamer attachment, place that on top so that the mushrooms are forced to stay under the broth!  You can do this with a large plate, or any food safe object if you don’t have a steamer tray, it just helps the mushrooms stay under the broth instead of floating the whole time.  Cook these for about 15 minutes, until tender, and then drain from the broth before pan frying!

So for the mushroom kimchi broth, you’ll need some mushroom broth to start with.  I used the company Brothee, and they’re sold on Milk & Eggs!  It’s so awesome they carry this broth, and it truly is delicious,  This would be great to use for a plethora of soups, sauces, or just to drink on its own like a vegan bone broth!  Add it to a pot with your kimchi, ginger, salt, and mushroom caps.  You can also add a squeeze of lime if you want, but it’s totally up to you!  Now for the kimchi, unfortunately Milk & Eggs doesn’t carry a vegan one, but you can get them at pretty much any grocery now a days!  The amount you add (plus the amount of kimchi liquid you add) is really all preference, depending how spicy you like things!  Heat this over medium heat, at a low boil, for at least 10 minutes to infuse all the flavors!  This is great to get going while you’re cooking your scallops.

Once your mushroom scallops are done cooking in the broth, drain them and then we can start pan frying them!  Add 2 tbsp of olive oil or vegan butter to a pan over medium high heat.  Once the oil / butter is rippling, add in your scallops one at a time.  You’ll want to cook these for about 3-4 minutes per side, or until golden brown.  Transfer them to some kitchen towel to drain the excess oil when they’re done, and sprinkle them with salt right when they come out of the pan!  These are super easy to cook up.

To plate these, add your scallops to a dish in a circle, then slowly add in about 1/4-1/2 cup of your broth.  You want it to cover the scallops barely, about 1/4 the way up the scallop will do!  Then add a slice of pickled habanero & shallot to each scallop, and place some micro greens in the center to garnish.  We also added some edible flower petals around as a garnish too, but it’s totally optional!  And there you go!  VEGAN Scallops done right!  These are really a show stopper and are sure to impress anyone you cook them for, plus they really are super easy to get done.  And how awesome is it that you can get most of the ingredients delivered right to your door step with Milk & Eggs?!  Lots of love and thanks to them again for sponsoring this post, if you guys give them a try, let me know!  I’ll definitely be ordering from them lots.

---

 

 

I know I haven’t posted a video here before, but my lovely boyfriend, Mitchell (who takes all the amazing photos you see on this blog) threw this little thing together of all the photos we took during this recipe.  It’s like a fun look into cooking along side of me, getting to see things more in depth!  If you guys want to see more videos from us, let us know!  We hope you enjoy!