There are some recipes in the 15 minute meals book which, for whatever reason, have been deemed unfit for the TV show. This includes all the breakfast recipes, eight fish recipes and an assortment of others. Some of them are a bit weird. There's that Mexican Salad for instance which stretches the definition of "meal" a bit. The Mustard Lamb which was wrong on various levels. Most of them have a hint of afterthought about them and I wonder whether they really are the creative fruits of JO himself or whether some office bod just dreamed them up after deciding the book needed padding out a bit more. This particular recipe looked like it had been thrown together by a work experience kid.
The picture looks odd - most of the pictures look exuberant and bursting with creativity but this one looks kind of subdued, like there's something missing. The greens are unceremoniously laid out on a plain, boring white plate. The concept is odd - scallops and mash? It's not exactly a classic combination. Nonetheless I press on with the cooking but it soon becomes clear that the recipe itself is a third problem. One of the first instructions is to cook the greens. They only take three minutes so once they're done, you plate them up and leave them to get cold for 10 minutes until everything else is cooked. Another problem is the timing of cooking the scallops - the book tells you to add the bacon after you have turned the scallops, but this doesn't allow enough time for the bacon to crisp up before the scallops are cooked. Do you take the scallops out and risk them getting cold or leave them in the pan and risk them overcooking? And then "mashing" the potatoes in the processor. Why? This does something to the starch in the potatoes which make it really gloopy. The cheese doesn't really help in that respect either.
To be honest it's probably not as dreadful as I've made out. The individual components are all ok: the scallops are nice. The greens, once warmed through are nice. The texture of the mash is weird but flavour wise, with the cheese and sun dried tomato it works quite well. The bacon adds a nice hit of saltiness. I just feel that something like scallops, which are quick and easy to cook, really should be an ideal ingredient around which to base a spectacular 15 minute meal and this recipe does not do them justice.
Lolz gave the dish 7/10. Difficulty rating 5/10.
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