Broccoli and Scallops

(A) Blanching vegetables 1. Heat a large pot of water with vegetable oil added.

When the water is boiling, add sliced carrots and broccoli and blanch for 3 minutes. Take them out and set aside. If you like, you can plunge the blanched broccoli in an ice water bath so that they retain their bright green hue.

Add ginger slices to the water you previously used to blanch vegetables. When the water is boiling, blanch clams for 1 minute and scallops for 2 minutes. Take them out and set aside.

Arrange blanched vegetables & seafood on a round serving plate. Place the broccoli around the plate with the stem pointing inwards, after which arrange the scallops, clams and broccoli in the centre, covering the broccoli stems.

(B) Making the Cheater’s Sauce 1. To prepare the sauce, dissolve vegetable cube in hot water. Add vegetable stock to a saucepan/wok. When it comes to a boil, add cornstarch solution, bit by bit, till it reaches the desired consistency. The ideal consistency (to me) is something slightly lighter than the thickness of oyster sauce. If you sauce is too watery, add more cornstarch solution; if it is too thick, just add a bit of water.

Pour the sauce over the vegetables you arranged previously and serve immediately.

* Where I bought my scallops in Singapore I’m quite fussy about the freshness of the scallops used. Therefore, I always buy the bigger ones sold at the fridge section of NTUC (they cost around $1 per scallop) because they taste juicier and fresher. I find that the scallops sold in a box at the frozen section (the last I checked, they cost around S$9 per box, and there are at least 30 scallops inside) though much cheaper, are smaller and a little “fishy” in taste, at least to me.