Seared Scallop, Roasted Beet, Supremed Citrus and Arugula with Cilantro Persillade

Peter and Allison’s Seared Scallop Salad

NOTES

An entrée salad that’s great for a party, with festive colors and plating. Feel free to play around with varieties of citrus, there are so many to choose from!

INSTRUCTIONS

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Remove tops of beets, wash the beets thoroughly and wrap in tinfoil. Put in the oven and roast for 45 minutes  to 1 hour, check on them after 40 minutes. If you can slice through them easily, they are done. Remove from over, unwrap and allow to cool. Slide skin off the cooked beets and discard. Cut the beets into 1” wedges.

Wash and spin arugula. Drizzle with juice of 1/2 lemon and olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper, toss to coat. Set aside.

Slice off both ends of your citrus. Rest on flat end, and take a sharp knife and cut from top to bottom, removing all the skin and white membrane of the fruit. Rotate fruit 90• and slice along the membranes that create the sections. you should have perfect wedges now, with no fibrous membrane attached whatsoever. Repeat with all your citrus.

Congratulations. You have just “supremed” an orange.Reserve the skins for the dressing.

In a high powered blender, add all ingredients for the persillade. Squeeze the reserved citrus skins to add whatever juice remains to the dressing. Blend until smooth.

Wash scallops very well (they tend to be sandy) and pat dry with a paper towel. Season with salt and pepper on both side.

Add 1 tbs olive oil or butter to a frying pan on medium heat. When the pan is hot, add scallops and cook on either side for 1 minute, or until you see that they are getting a golden brown hue. flip only once. They should remain raw in the center.

Pile arugula on a platter, top with beets and citrus and scallops, and spoon persillade over the top and edges of the plate.

Serve.

RECIPE

DIFFICULTY

MODERATE

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SERVES

4

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PREP TIME

60 MINS

Salad

  • 12 
     
    large Diver Scallops
  •  
    medium red beets
  •  
    Cara Cara oranges
  • 1/2 
     
    pink grapefruit
  • handfuls 
    baby arugula
  • 1/2 
     
    lemon
  •  
     
    olive oil

Dressing

  • 1/4 
    cup 
    lemon juice
  • 1/4 
    cup 
    olive oil
  • 1/2 
    cup 
    cilantro
  • 1/4 
    cup 
    flat leaf Italian parsley leaves

INSTRUCTIONS

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Remove tops of beets, wash the beets thoroughly and wrap in tinfoil. Put in the oven and roast for 45 minutes  to 1 hour, check on them after 40 minutes. If you can slice through them easily, they are done. Remove from over, unwrap and allow to cool. Slide skin off the cooked beets and discard. Cut the beets into 1” wedges.

Wash and spin arugula. Drizzle with juice of 1/2 lemon and olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper, toss to coat. Set aside.

Slice off both ends of your citrus. Rest on flat end, and take a sharp knife and cut from top to bottom, removing all the skin and white membrane of the fruit. Rotate fruit 90• and slice along the membranes that create the sections. you should have perfect wedges now, with no fibrous membrane attached whatsoever. Repeat with all your citrus.

Congratulations. You have just “supremed” an orange.Reserve the skins for the dressing.

In a high powered blender, add all ingredients for the persillade. Squeeze the reserved citrus skins to add whatever juice remains to the dressing. Blend until smooth.

Wash scallops very well (they tend to be sandy) and pat dry with a paper towel. Season with salt and pepper on both side.

Add 1 tbs olive oil or butter to a frying pan on medium heat. When the pan is hot, add scallops and cook on either side for 1 minute, or until you see that they are getting a golden brown hue. flip only once. They should remain raw in the center.

Pile arugula on a platter, top with beets and citrus and scallops, and spoon persillade over the top and edges of the plate.

Serve.

I would call Allison Weissberg and Peter Barker-Huelster a “power couple” if they weren’t so damn nice. In an art world full of shmoozers, these are two faces that I search for in a crowd. I had the honor of doing a show with Allison in 2012 at her SoHo non-profit art space, Recess Activities. Allison established Recess in 2009, and has since played no small role in supporting some of my favorite artists in their pursuit of experimental, interactive and performative works (thank you Allison for giving us a reason to live). If you have not applied for the Recess Open call, get to it. But be warned — all subsequent art world interactions will be a let-down in comparison.

Allison and Peter met while working at MoMA:  Allison in Education and Peter in the Library and Archives. Allison soon went out on her own, and Peter made the wise decision to go to NYU Law School. He is now a staff attorney at MFY Legal Services, where he, “helps poor people file for bankruptcy.” So, he is a socially conscious lawyer, who makes it home in time to cook his wife and child gourmet dinners. Yeah… what did you do today?

This salad plays no small part in the origin story of these two fine people, and it is one that they have made over 20 times since they ordered it together on one of their very first dates.

Peter r and Allison Weissberg in Their Own Words

Julia: This salad was one of the very first meals you shared. Tell me about that?

Peter: We went to Dumont, in Williamsburg, which was surely the coolest place I had ever been to at that time (Peter is from Minnesota and Allison a native New Yorker). Allison talked me into this salad. I had maybe never had a scallop nor a beet before that night.

Allison: Turns out Peter told a lot of white lies in the beginning of our relationship….”Oh, yeaahhh, I love scallops!”

Peter: She wouldn’t have married me if I hadn’t learned to like them, and I would never have procreated with her if she hadn’t learn to like whiskey and Guinness

Julia: You cook dinner together more often than the average New York couple. How many nights a week do you manage to do that?

Peter: I would say 3-4 nights a week we cook dinner together at home.

Allison: Peter, that is very generous. Peter cooks, while I drink a glass of wine and entertain him with a re-cap of my daily anxieties.

Julia: How old does a baby have to be before they can eat salad?

Allison: I once blended up kale and beets and Lionel liked it for a minute. Does it count as salad if it has been puréed?