Sweet & Salty love affair: Millefeuille of Mekong

Millefeuille of Mekong: Pan seared Scallops served over
layers of crispy rice wrapper and mango tartar salad
with tamarind vinaigrette

When my doctor announced to us the good news of my "pregnancy" (same time a year ago) I knew that there would be clashes of ideas between me and my hubby. For he is a man of science (there is always an explanation to everything) contrary to me that that has strong attachments to "wisdoms" of elder generation. Superstitions related to pregnancy are limitless after all its natural for mothers to do anything they think will ensure the birth of a healthy child. I remember I often hear such funny comments from my aunties like, "avoid looking at ugly people or it will make your baby ugly" or "not to eat chocolate if you do not want your baby to have a dark skin" . Well I'm sure you have heard a lot too. There is a widespread superstition on pregnancy in Philippines called "Paglilihi", a term that describes pregnant mom's strong desire to eat a certain food and that fathers should at all cost make it possible to ensure the birth of their dream child. Well, as my pregnancy progress I noticed that I had that very strong envies to eat "asian food", specially filipino food. My husband told me its normal (of course:-)) because i'm longing for my country that I have not visited for quite some time and it was absolutely nothing to do with my pregnancy. Anyway to cut the story short, I won. He gave in (maybe because he just does not want me to have early contractions) to my "food tantrums". So when we went back from our "shopping spree" in the closest Asian grocery in our city, this is how our living room looked like this.

Our tatami laden with Asian goodies.

We bought tons of noodles, asian condiments, asian vegetables and other hard to find ingredients like: tocino mix (sweet ham like curing powder), guava soupe mix (I love this), shrimp paste, tamarind paste, well the list is really endless. With all this, we concocted this sweet and salty entrée of pan seared Scallops served in layers of crispy fried crispy rice wrappers and mango tartar with tamarind and pomegrate sauce. My husband had the idea of the rice wrappers millefeuille but the stuffing is definitely mine! Hubby called this recipe the Millefeuille of Mekong.


Mango Tartar Salad
1 ripe mango, the seeds of half of a pomegranate, 2 tsps of lime juice, salt, pepper,2 tbsp of olive oil

In a bowl mix the lime juice with salt and pepper. Peel the mango, remove the seed and cut into small cubes. Put the mango and the pomegrate seeds in the bowl with the sauce and add up the olive oil. Put them in the fridge

Crispy Rice Wrappers
6 sheet of dried rice wrapper, 1 egg, 1 tsp of black sesame seeds, 1tsp of white sesame seeds, oil for frying

Dredge in the egg the rice wrapper then sprinkle it with black and white sesame seeds. Fry them one by one in a very hot casserole with oil. Cook each wrapper for about 3 seconds. Dry them in paper towel.
Tamarind and Pomegrenate Vinaigrette
1 tsp of tamarind paste, 3 tbsps of olive oil, 1 tsp of Nuoc Nam, 1 tsp of honey, 2 tbsps of pomegrenate seeds

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, set aside.

Pan seared Scallops
12 scallops, 10 g of butter, salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a pan , when it becomes hot add the scallops and fry each side for about 30 seconds. Put salt and pepper on the top
Assembling the Millefeuille
Start first with a layer of crispy rice wrapper followed with the mango tartar. You can alternate the layer with the mango tartar and a layer of beans sprout and baby spinach salad. Garnish the top layer with the scallops. Drizzle on the top the tamarind vinaigrette. Bon appetit!!

Ps. Hello blogging friends, you might have noticed that I've been blogging very slowly these past few days and I have been bloging about my old recipes. My family is actually confronting a big problem (my dad is not doing very well). I still try to continue to blog because this makes my mind occupied. :-(