Innovate or Die – It’s Scallops Peters

I dedicate this post to innovation. Our advertising business is now a broad communications company because we have been innovating like mad over the last few years. If we hadn’t, it would have gone the way of hot metal (I am long enough at it to remember the compositors in the Irish Times, Irish Press and Irish Independent newspapers outputting the lines of type from molten lead on huge noisy typewriter like machines.). Those skilled craftsmen are now a part of publishing folklore as will be the UX Specialists of today (User Experience to ye outside the know).  It’s all about change management and innovation. This is an excellent thing because it keeps us mentally agile, interested and hopefully, interesting.

“What has that to do with scallops?”, I hear you cry. My scallop innovation starts with inventing a new recipe for the little beauties. I came up with ‘Pan Seared Scallops on a Bed of Pureed Parsnips and Carrots with Ginger, Garlic and Chili’. I admit that the title needs a bit of work. What do you think of Scallops Peters, after the author of ‘Innovate or Die’, the seminal tome on the subject? A simple list of ingredients is part of my innovation:

• 12 scallops
• Carrots (you decide on quantity)
• Parsnips (as above)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 chili
• 2 inches of ginger root
• Some olive oil

Gratuitous vegetable shot. I was trying to shoot the entire post on a fixed 50mm lens. More, if minor innovation.

I wanted to roast the chili with the carrots and the garlic with the parsnips. Innovation strikes again. I cut a channel into a carrot and a parsnip and inserted the chili and garlic.

Innovation central! The chili and garlic roasted with the right veg. Tom Peters would be proud of me.

The photographers amongst you will appreciate my next innovation. I wanted to get the vegetables at just the right angle for the reflected scallop shot up top of the post. Using a fixed 50mm lens led to a lot of trial and error. I solved the problem with a soon to be patented variable angle adjuster behind the chopping board.

My variable angle adjuster in action. Precision engineered by nature. Innovative or what?

At this stage I pureed the parsnip / garlic and carrots / chili mixtures. I squeezed in the juice of the ginger into the carrot.

You can innovate all you like and introduce change management programmes but nothing will get me to alter how I cooked the scallops. Into a hot pan with them. I fried these in a mix of vegetable oil and butter. I took them off before you might. Whatever you do don’t over-cook them.

No innovation here. There was some personal change management though. I cooked and ate the coral. It was fantastic – sweet and tasty.

The finished dish looked like this for all of about two minutes before we dug in.

Thanks to Tom Peters for keeping us on our toes. Try this. You won’t be disappointed.

This was a worthy innovation in my kitchen. The layers of flavour from the sweet scallops through the earthy parsnips to the slightly hot carrot, chili and ginger were wonderful. Give it a go.