I don’t remember eating a lot of seafood growing up; except for on Christmas Eve where it is just a feast of seafood, and since I was vegan/vegetarian for a good five years, I never really had a time to try it.
But more recently I have been trying to expand my knowledge of seafood. I started with scallops. Actually no, I started with a bottle of Viognier.
Over the past summer I decided it was time that my girlfriend and I started to venture down to Niagara wine country, see what wines Ontario has to offer a stones throw away.
On our first visit in July, we stopped by some of the more modern wineries like Stratus and Tawse and a few others, Pillitteri and Vineland Estates. The second time down, we wanted to try a few smaller wineries, so we tried Alvento.
The owners of Alvento, Bruno and Elyane Moos, keep the small winery running by themselves, with help from wine collector Morrie Neiss. The actual winery looks like a small house, located in the middle of some pear and apple trees and, of course, their vines.
The small tasting room is a lined with bottles of their wine, and a poster from the Teatro Alla Scala, the famous opera house in Milan, signed by one of the opera singers Sondra. Bruno said the poster was up because Sondra was the lead in that opera and they are naming one of their new wines after her.
Apart from wines, Alvento apparently also has some balsamic vinegar that that they have been aging at the winery that should be released soon that I am excited to try.
So, from that bottle of Viognier I decided we should have scallops for dinner.
I chose to make them from Giorgio Locatelli’s Made in Italy book with a celeriac puree and celery.
This was not the only the first time I had made scallops, but also the first time I had worked with celeriac (celery root.)
The celeriac was put in an over for 30 minutes with olive oil, water, rosemary, garlic and salt. Then it was pureed in the blender and pushed through a sieve to create a sauce that came out a little too thin, but perfect for the base of the scallops.
Using celery that was cut with a mandolin, not an easy task let me tell you I almost took off my palm trying to push the celery through the fine blade, it rested for 30 minutes in a bath of cold water and ice to crisp it. The celery slices were then mixed with a lemon vinaigrette.
In the book, Locatelli says to place the scallops in the oven after searing them on one side in a pan to make sure that they are fully cooked. When I made them I put half of them, my girlfriends, in the oven to make sure hers were fully cooked and just pan seared mine on both sides.
I found that even though they were in the oven for under a minute, they dried out too much and lacked the flavour and texture that mine had in the centre.
After the scallops were cooked they were dunked in a saffron vinaigrette and then plated on top of the celeriac puree with the celery strands on top of the scallops.
As an anti-pasto or apristomaco, we had prosciutto rolls with arugola. In the rolls was arugola with a simple lemon vinaigrette. I love these little rolls, they are the perfect little appetizer that has a little salty flavour from the prosciutto and the acidity form the lemon. On top, I drizzle a white truffle olive oil.
Combined with the Alvento Viognier the creamy scallops were great.
The Viognier had a nose of flowers and citrus, lemons and had a wonderful golden yellow colour.
Prosciutto rolls
Scallops with celeriac puree and celery
Alvento 2006 Viognier
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