This dish is absolutely perfect for a date night and will undoubtedly impress your date. Make sure to save the recipe for a special occasion or a date night! And it is absolutely easy and simple to make.
Why you will love this dish
You’ll love this dish as much as I do. After experimenting with different ideas, I think I finally nailed it. It looks like an elegant, high-end restaurant-style dish, but it’s easy to make. The flavors and textures are amazing – citrusy, creamy, umami, and perfectly balanced sweet and salty. Scallops, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms are pan-seared and coated in nori butter, served in a luxurious yuzu miso saffron cream. This fool-proof recipe will give you a fancy dining experience at home.
Ingredients to make Scallops and Mushrooms in Miso Saffron Cream
☑️Scallops:
Scallops in the market are usually sold frozen or thawed, with or without shells. They cook quickly, taking only a couple of minutes depending on size. A good portion size is 4-5 scallops per person. Perfectly cooked scallops are opaque in the middle and golden brown on the outside, firm but still soft and buttery. Overcooked scallops become rubbery and tough to chew.
☑️Mushrooms:
Any type of mushrooms is good except for enoki mushrooms that they become too soft and soggy), but mushrooms that are meatier and chewier provide a better textural experience. I recommend using shiitake, oyster, portobello, or king oyster mushrooms. For this recipe, I used oyster mushrooms and rehydrated shiitake mushrooms. If you are using dried shiitake mushrooms, soak a few in hot water for about 20 minutes until they become rehydrated and soft.
☑️Miso:
Miso is a fermented soybean paste made from soybeans, koji rice, and salt. It is widely used in East Asian countries like Japan and Korea. In the supermarket, you will commonly find white miso and red miso. White miso is slightly sweeter compared to red miso, which is saltier due to a longer fermentation process and lesser content of Koji rice. If you only have red miso at home, there’s no need to buy white miso; just use a smaller amount. In this recipe, I used my own homemade chickpea miso.
☑️Saffron:
Saffron gives this dish a beautifully vivid yellow hue. Unlike many other herbs and spices, saffron dissolves its flavor better in water. Soak 3-4 threads in about 1 tablespoon of hot water for at least 20 minutes. It has a sweet, floral, and slightly earthy flavor profile. Saffron can be used in sweet desserts as well as savory dishes. It is one of the most expensive herbs on earth. To produce 30g of saffron, you need over 6000 flowers and over 12 hours of labor.
☑️Yuzu Juice or Citrus Juice:
Yuzu is a citrus fruit with a wonderful aroma that is slightly more tart than other fruits. It is primarily grown in Japan and Korea and is used in various East Asian cuisines. If you can’t find fresh yuzu, you can purchase concentrated juice at Japanese and some Asian grocery stores. Alternatively, you can substitute with other citrus fruit juices such as orange, grapefruit, mandarin, or lemon.
☑️Nori butter:
Nori is a type of dry seaweed often used in sushi as the black-dark greenish thin sheet that wraps around the sushi. Nori butter is made of nori powder and butter. In the culinary world, butter can be mixed with various spices and herbs to enhance the flavor of a dish or create different layers of tastes. To make nori butter, mix soft butter at room temperature with nori powder or soften butter quickly using microwave and mix in nori powder. You can blend nori sheets finely in a spice grinder. Add a small amount of nori butter into the pan in the last minute of cooking scallops.
Ingredients
Scallops and Mushrooms
- scallops 8 pieces
- Oyster mushrooms handful around 150g or Shitake Mushrooms 8 pieces
- Salt
Miso Cream
- Miso around 1 and 1/2 teaspoon.
- Fresh cream 3/4 cup
- Maple syrup, honey or brown sugar 4 ts
- Saffron 4 threads infused water
- Yuzu juice 2 ts
- Shallot green chopped as garnish
Nori Butter
- Nori powder
- Butter
- Salt
Other Ingredients
- Shallot (spring onion)
- Oil
Instructions
Step 1 - Preparation
Mushrooms
- Clean the mushrooms with a damp cloth and remove the stems of shiitake mushrooms or the hard base. If you are using dried shiitake mushrooms, soak them in hot water for about 15 minutes until they become soft. Remove the tougher base of the stems and separate the oyster mushrooms.
Saffron
- To extract its color and flavor, steep in a small amount of hot water for approximately 20 minutes.
Scallops
- Defrost them if using frozen, rinse and pat dry.
Step 2 - Saffron Miso Cream
- Combine miso, cream, saffron-infused water (with threads), and maple syrup in a pan and let it simmer over low heat. Mix well until the miso is fully dissolved without any lumps. Just before turning off the heat, add a teaspoon of yuzu or other citrus juice.
Step 3 - Nori Butter
- Blend nori into a fine powder using a spice grinder. There are two ways to make nori butter: the longer method involves leaving butter at room temperature until soft, then mixing in nori powder, while the quicker method involves softening butter in the microwave, then adding and mixing in nori powder.
Step 4 - Cooking mushrooms
- Heat a pan with oil over medium to high heat. Once hot, add mushrooms and sauté until browned, ensuring both sides are cooked.
Step 5 - Sauteing Scallops
- First, heat up some oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Once the pan is very hot, add the scallops and cook for just a minute or so, until they become opaque in the middle and golden brown on the outside edges. When the scallops are almost done, add the nori butter and quickly toss before plating.
Step 6 - Plating
- Plate the cooked mushrooms and nori-buttered scallops on a pasta plate or concave plate, then add saffron miso cream and garnish with chopped spring onion greens.
- Serve with rice, pasta or bread.
