A beautiful drive, north east recently took me to Whitby to meet Rob and Emma Green whose restaurant - Green's - is the go to place for great seafood cooking on this part of the coast. Rob has just opened a cookery school which he runs out of the restaurant kitchen. I visited to write a piece for the Yorkshire Post.
Rob has been cooking seafood for twenty five years. With his restaurant poised on Whitby’s quayside he is well placed to teach how to cook the freshest, tastiest and simplest of his restaurant’s best loved dishes.
Squid, mussels, langoustine, king and queen scallops were on the menu for the morning’s group of six keen students. In September I wrote about Rob's great
recipe but for this post I am choosing my favourite recipe to share with everyone - Queen scallops with ham and hazelnut pesto.
It is simple to prepare and cooks in a flash. The only tricky part is sourcing the tiny scallop shells which you need to cook the dish. Mine came from a trip I made to Tasmania and were collected along the shore of one of the most beautiful beaches in the world - Cole's Bay which is a bit far for most people.
I asked Rob's advice on where to source them closer to home "fishmonger are not allowed to sell the scallop shells but you can buy them on the internet or from seaside shell shops." I just hope that advice helps you find some.
Queen scallops with ham and hazelnut pesto
Serves 6
Ingredients
18 scallops, cleaned and shells reserved
2 slices of York ham (Parma will do), cut into small strips
4 tbsp freshly made hazelnut pesto
25g Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
Method
Preheat oven to 200°C/ Gas 6.
Place 18 small scallop shells on a baking tray. Place a Queen scallop in each shell and top with a few shreds of ham, a teaspoon of hazelnut pesto and a pinch of finely grated Parmesan cheese. Place in a hot oven for 3 – 5 minutes or until the scallops are cooked and the Parmesan cheese is bubbling. Serve garnished with a delicate sprig of chervil or other salad leaves and warm, fresh bread.
Hazelnut pesto
Ingredients
50g hazelnuts
50g Parmesan cheese
Large bunch of basil
150ml olive oil
2 cloves garlic
Sea salt and ground black pepper
Method
Place the hazelnuts in a small, hot frying pan and toast until they are dark brown. Shake the pan from time to time to prevent the nuts burning. Finely grate the Parmesan cheese and place the toasted hazelnuts and the remaining ingredients into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Season the scallops with salt and pepper.
I had some time after cooking with Rob to wander around the harbour and take some photographs.
Whitby is full of character and has been helped to earn a place on the map by Captain Cook who learned to sail here. Bram Stoker who set part of his Gothic horror novel Dracular here and Frank Meadow Sutcliffe who immortalised the people and scenes from the town in his wonderfully evocative photographs. So to wander around this special seaside town is to soak up some of its character and impressive history.
One of the most memorable things I saw were a handful of fishermen with long rods arriving at dusk to catch cod from the end of the harbour. Cod stocks have recovered somewhat and it is possible to catch a 6 - 8kg cod. I wasn't able to stay to witness this as the fishermen land them at midnight. It was just too cold and far away from home for me to stay for that. Perhaps another time.
Rob Green
For more information about
www.greensofwhitby.com
PS You might also be interested to know that Whitby has it's own fishing school devoted to training the next generation of fishermen and women. You can read more about it in my article for the
