Usually when there is a season of MasterChef Australia or My Kitchen Rules South Africa playing, my cooking game goes up a notch. I watch an episode then go online and start buying things I would never think of cooking. When the delivery arrives and I hesitantly look at my bank balance, the feeling or regret and fear usually culminates in inspiration for days.

The culprit this time is My Kitchen Rules South Africa. Even though it’s a duo cooking challenge, I do it alone. I might as well because I am the one that spent all that money frivolously. Scallops arrived from a local fishery and if you know how expensive they are, you know that I can’t mess it up.

Scallops are a type of bivalve mollusk, meaning the interior muscle is surrounded by two shells similarly to oysters, mussels, and clams. Inside the shell, scallops have a white adductor muscle (the part we to eat) that opens and closes the shell, as well as a bright orange section called the coral. The muscle is round and tender when cooked, with both a touch of sweetness and briny saltiness. The coral is also edible, but is not typically consumed in the U.S. There are two types of scallops: Bay scallops and sea scallops. The bay variety are smaller (about the size of a dime) and more tender, while sea scallops are larger, growing as big as two inches.

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From my years of learning how to cook, I’ve focused a lot on plating. One of my favourite chefs, Les Da Chef, who unfortunately succumbed to a Covid19 related illness earlier this year said something like this about plating: When thinking about what to serve someone, think about the plating first. That will help you in deciding what elements to start cooking. The sea scallops I had were really thick and plump and they provide a lot of height. That meant the plate I used could have some depth to it. Since I knew which one I wanted or rather a bowl, it allowed to me create a sauce or soup to accompany it.

Moving onto the sauce. I opted for a soup because after thinking about the plating, I wanted a pop of colour. I had a packet of frozen peas in the freezer, fresh herbs, onion and chilli flakes. Cooked and combined them all, blended them on super high for the finest consistency, burnt my foot when the hand blender slipped and some pea soup went flying out the bowl. Cursed a little, cleaned my foot and strained the largest pieces out my soup. Tasted it, loved it but knew something was missing.

Right now I had two smooth textures and wanted a crunchy element. You can never go wrong with bacon. I grilled those rashers until super crispy, ate one because it was so good and crushed the rest into small chunks roughly the size of course salt. With that done, I started thinking about my plating again. Something was still missing. Something to give this plate a wow factor. From my days of experimenting with different types of noodles, I remembered my left over vermicelli in my pantry cupboard. The bacon was a nice crunchy texture but if I fried and garnished the vermicelli, it not only adds more crunchy-ness to the plate but also more height. My instincts paid off. After snacking on the first and second batch of fried vermicelli, I made a third which I left aside to drain and seasoned it.

Lastly is the scallops. Always make these last. The last thing you want to do is to have to warm them up and lose that plump texture and get a rubbery chew from those expensive things. You can’t go wrong with keeping things simple: Butter and salt is all you need with scallops. You want the butter to caramelise, and brown the scallops ever-so-lightly while the salt is just for flavour. While these are browning on the pan, this is your time to warm up the pea soup and sprinkle the bacon chunks. Leave some for on top of the vermicelli. Pat the scallops dry add them to the soup, top with the vermicelli and bacon chunks.

You can’t go wrong with this meal. It honestly worked so well together. All the elements complemented each other. Every bite was better than the last. Creamy met crunchy met savoury met chilli met happiness.

This will probably go down as my most perfect dish… yet.

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