Not long ago I bought a whole pound of Vanilla beans. And tonight my challenge was to make a savory dinner with it.

Sea scallops with Vanilla salt, blood orange salsa and coconut sauce.

In a pan I reduced the coconut milk with a bit of heavy cream, some orange skin, vanilla bean, cilantro and shallot.

I cut the skin off  my blood orange and a grapefruit and slicing the supremes out. I cut them in small pieces, add salt and pepper, freshly chopped cilantro and a drizzle of olive oil. This is my salsa.

Then I put the scallops on a paper towel to remove excess moisture and season it with a salt made of kosher salt and vanilla seeds extracted from cutting the vanilla bean length wise and scrapping the inside with your knife.

When I am almost ready to serve, I drain the coconut sauce. In a hot pan I sear my scallops, depending on the size of you scallops but it shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes and throw a couple shrimp to poach in the coconut sauce. Then I just have to plate. I put some of the coconut sauce at the bottom of a plate, top it with the sea scallops, the poach shrimp and add the salsa.

As a main course, I marinated some hanger steak in a coffee/vanilla/pepper rub then grilled it and served it with a Vanilla lemongrass mash potatoes. Though it may sound weird, it’s actually delicious. Add a vanilla bean and lemongrass to the water you’re cooking the potatoes in and discard them when you drain the potatoes. It’s very subtle!

I can wait to make them again with fish!

Bon Appétit!