Modern surf and turf

Like most of my self created dishes, this one started out as one ingredient. In this case it was pork belly. I wanted to try to cook some sous vide and, after some research on different times and temperature combinations, decided on cooking for three days (72 hours) at 63.5C.

Now what to do with it? Pork and scallops is sometimes used as a modern day surf and turf so that formed the basis of the dish concept.

Having a key ingredient presented three ways is a good way of doing a dish but I wanted to keep away from either more pork belly or from slabs of pork that would detract from the belly as the core ingredient. Fortunately charcuterie gave a number of viable alternatives. I decided on fried serrano ham and blood sausage to give different tastes and textures.

The cooked pork belly was sliced, seared over high heat and dressed with a cider glaze (basically a small bottle of cider reduced down to a glaze with a bit of sugar and salt added). The searing served to cook the fat that was not altered sufficiently by the temperature at which the pork was cooked.

The pork was served with a cauliflower purée made by cooking the vegetable in milk and then processing it into a purée with a bit of the cooking liquor. It was also accompanied by seared scallops (one topped with some Avruga), pork jus, and wilted baby spinach.

The design intention behind the dish, like most of my dishes was to include complementary flavours, contrasting textures, and visual appeal.