Savoury,  Spicy

Stir-fry scallops and decorating hens


Java has a boyfriend. In fact, she has two. One lives about a kilometre away to the east, and the other a kilometre to the west. At the moment they have different visiting times but, as one of them in particular is making himself more and more at home ‘chez Java’, it’s inevitable that one day they’ll turn up at the same time and I’m afraid it won’t be pretty. Especially if drama llama Java has anything to do with it. Meanwhile, Hugo is delighted because it gets her off his back for a bit; when either of them turns up,  he shrugs a gallic canine shrug, sighs with relief and leaves them to it. There are only two prerequisites to be Java’s dogfriend: speed and stamina (although Hugo would no doubt say stupidity was another one). ‘Dates’ consist of running around the house at break-neck speed for hours on end, stopping only occasionally either to change direction or to slurp noisily from the pool. If they tire before she’s had enough, she barks at them manically. A catch she is not – just ask Hugo.
Niko, Java’s handsome admirer from the East
In other news, I noticed the other day that a couple of the hens had blobs of Farrow and Ball’s ‘Folly Green’ paint on their wings. Thinking that they’d just been hanging out too long in the workshop, I rinsed them down and forgot about it until Luc started to rant that the hens’ ‘tattoos’  had faded. Apparently he’d been colour-coding them according to how many eggs they lay. No doubt this information was to make its way onto a complicated spreadsheet to determine whether they’re paying for their keep, and if not, whether their next port of call should be a Le Creuset casserole dish. As he knows that I refuse to cook any beast that I’ve fed and built up a relationship with, it seems rather futile, but whatever floats his boat. And spreadsheets seem to.
These scallops seemed to float everyone’s boat when I last made them. I served them with rice, but they would be delicious with noodles too.
Ingredients (serves 4)
4 tablespoons sesame oil
10 mushrooms, peeled and sliced
1 red onion, peeled and sliced
2 small carrots, peeled and sliced
75g greens peas
1 red pepper, sliced
500g scallops
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated
1 teaspoon chilli powder
4 tablespoons soya sauce
Heat the sesame soil in a large frying pan or wok, add the mushrooms, onion, carrots, peaks and pepper and stir fry until tender. Add the scallops, garlic, ginger and chilli powder and stir fry for about two minutes or until the scallops become opaque. Add the soya sauce heating for a further minute and serve. I served with a combination of wild rice/thai rice.
 

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