Flavor alchemy

Lobster soup with vanilla and saffron, often requested at Michael Roberts’ Trumps restaurant, used one of his favorite secret ingredients — vanilla — in a savory dish, breaking with the spice’s traditional use. The credit for combining vanilla and lobster goes to Alain Senderens, one of the forces in French cooking pushing for new flavors and methods, but Roberts took vanilla to many other exotic places.

Vanilla is native of the southern forests east of the Sierra Madre Oriental in the state of Veracruz in Mexico, where the Mexican Volcanic Belt has created towering peaks with deep valleys capped by waterfalls. There, vanilla was used as payment in pre-Columbian times by the Totonacs to the Aztecs, who used it to scent their chocolate drinks. Once the Europeans arrived, they took the combination and added milk and sugar to it, associating vanilla to sweet flavors. Senderens had broken a long tradition.

Roberts observes that any shellfish will go well with vanilla, so I decided to make caramelized scallops, which taste sweet, with a pan sauce made with vanilla.

Recipe

The scallops are caramelized by pan-frying. Large scallops (15 or less per pound) could be grilled, but I have yet to succeed at it. If the scallops are small (30 or more per pound) sautéing may be easier.

Caramelizing scallops can be tricky: it’s very easy to overcook them. They are also delicate and frying them to later deglaze the pan requires a watchful eye. Scallops are often frozen at origin and packers may soak then in a sodium tripolyphosphate solution to help them retain their weight or even gain some. Avoid the scallops with tripolyphosphate and check the package for the water content, it should be below 80%, often labeled as dry scallops or dry packed, an indication that no tripolyphosphate was used.

The dry scallops will release less water when frying, helping control the splatter and keeping the pan hot (no liquids to suck the energy through evaporation). I do not have a professional stovetop with a giant burner, so I fry the scallops in small batches. I don’t dredge the scallops in flour before frying, as they will not caramelize as well. If a few weeks go by before I fry scallops again, I feel out of practice, so I fry one and try it.

The chicken broth should be salt-free or low sodium. I find that because of the vanilla, very little salt needs to be added to the recipe. The garlic should be minced, not crushed or pressed, as this will make it more pungent.

For this dish you will need:

• 1 lb of large scallops (10 to 30 per pound)
• canola oil (or other high smoke-point oil)
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons of butter

1. Place the scallops in a colander over a bowl and then seal with plastic wrap. Keep in the refrigerator overnight if they are frozen, for an hour otherwise.

2. Pick a seasoned iron skillet or a heavy non-stick frying pan to caramelize the scallops. Pour half a cup of water into it and observe what it looks like. You will need to have a feel for this volume when making the pan sauce. Dispose of the water and put the pan over medium heat. Warm a dish for the scallops in the oven set to its lowest temperature (180°F or 82°C).

3. Dry the scallops over paper towels. Save the liquid that accumulated in the bowl (should be a tablespoon or two) for later.

4. Pan fry the scallops. Place 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil (butter will burn) in the pan and place a third of the scallops into it, flat side down. Watch as the scallops start to expand at the bottom and change color, about one to two minutes. Flip and fry the other side. You should get a deep brown color with little black. If you time your first batch, the second batch can be adjusted to perfection.

5. Remove the first batch onto the warm dish and keep in the oven while you fry the other batches. Scrape any bits from the pan and save them for the pan sauce. If they stay in the pan they will burn and turn bitter. Using a paper towel bunched into a ball carefully wipe the pan clean. Fry the remaining batches of scallops.

6. Pour the wine, broth, garlic, the liquid that dripped while defrosting, and collected tidbits into the pan. Bring to a gentle boil, deglazing any other caramelized tidbits from the pan. The liquid should reduce to one half cup.

7. Add vanilla extract to the pan and stir for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and add butter, stirring until it melts.

8. Serve by placing some scallops on the plate and spooning some of the pan sauce around them.

Pay close attention or you may think this sweet pea dip is guacamole. It’s texture and color are spot on and the flavor, not quite avocado — it’s not fatty enough — is not peas either. Michael Roberts created this recipe as a self-challenge after a lady commented on how less-reputable restaurants used peas to dilute guacamole.

The recipe is in Roberts’ Secret Ingredients cookbook and was posted many years ago to the Prodigy Internet service. It has been copied over the Internet and in print ever since, often without credit to Roberts. There are also variants that add some avocado, tomato, sour cream, or even cooked broccoli.

The peas with the lime are the essential combination. Their flavors just balance well in the proportions given. The olive oil adds the needed fat, but could be replaced by some other liquid oil. The other ingredients contribute to the flavor and could be varied to taste.

Recipe

This dip may be served whenever you would use guacamole. It has less calories than guacamole and a refreshing flavor. The sweetness of the peas is important for the recipe, so Roberts suggests using frozen peas, as it is hard to find fresh peas that are as sweet. Lemon does not work as well as lime, and use only freshly squeezed lime to avoid bitter (or flat) citrus tastes. How many chilies is up to how sensitive you are to its capsaicin: half if you are not used to spicy-hot food, two if you eat spicy at Thai and Indian restaurants.

For the recipe you will need:

• 1 or 2 Serrano chilies
• 2 tablespoons of fresh lime juice (30ml, about one lime)
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil (30 ml)
• 1/4 bunch of cilantro (1/4 bunch = 14 grams)
• 1 lb. frozen sweet peas (454 grams)
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 garlic clove
• 1/2 red onion

1. Defrost the peas in cold water or in the microwave. They shouldn’t be frozen, but they should not feel warm.

2. Slice the Serranos in half, lengthwise. Remove the seeds. If you want it less hot, remove the white placenta.

3. Add the chilies, lime juice, olive oil and cilantro to the food processor and blend until well mixed.

4. Add the peas, the cumin, and the salt. Quarter the garlic clove and add it to the bowl; you want it minced, not crushed. Pulse until a paste forms. Watch carefully and test the texture often. There is no right texture: some like it smooth, others like it uneven.

5. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and add the finely chopped onion mixing with a spoon or spatula.

The ingredients in this recipe differ slightly from Roberts. He had no garlic, and used 1/4 of an onion and 1/4 teaspoon of ground cumin. I feel our tastes for Mexican flavors have evolved and our expectations from guacamole require the extra spices.

Michael Roberts was known for his audacious flavor combinations: shellfish and vanilla, peas and lime, or pickled pumpkin. His skills at combining flavors were on display at Trumps, his West Hollywood restaurant. Late night, he would amuse celebrities and guests by creating appetizing dishes from perversely mixed fresh ingredients that friends would bring in from California farms.

I had never heard of Trumps or Roberts until I stumbled on his cookbook Secret Ingredients in a used bookstore. What a wealth of unusual combinations! Martin, from Khymos, has assembled a list of uncommon food pairings that started from insights of François Benzi and Heston Blumenthal. Looking for ingredients that share naturally occurring chemicals, they and others after them have identified combinations that should go well together. Roberts was a natural at these pairings.

Trumps, together with Wet Beach Cafe in Venice and Michael’s in Santa Monica, helped germinate in the 1980’s the seed of California Cuisine planted by Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Trumps showed that an upscale restaurant could exist without giant chandeliers or marble fish ponds. Instead, it had concrete tables and the gurgle of a water fountain designed by Eric Orr (it’s Orr’s fountain on the corner of Wilshire and Figueroa in Los Angles). Roberts closed Trumps in 1992 to open Twin Palms in Pasadena with Kevin and Cindy Costner.

The recipes are French bistro style, but the flavor combinations have the Roberts twist. Keeping such creativity can be challenging, so when Roberts’ cooking slumped, bored with his own creations, he didn’t mope in front of the TV with a tub of ice-cream. He packed up and went to explore the flavors of Pondicherry, Chennai, and Cochin in southern India. Such energy fills every page of the book.