OK, here's what happened. I started by cooking two strips of bacon. It just felt right. While the bacon was cooking, I shredded two peeled potatoes with a wide-gauge cheese grater. I was thinkin' latkes. Into the potatoes I broke one egg and added half a chopped shallot, a heaping tablespoon of flour, salt, and pepper. On an impulse, I threw in a tiny dash of champagne vinegar. Once the bacon was done, I put half the grease into a smaller no-stick pan. In this pan I sauteed some chopped garlic after adding a little bit of butter. I removed the bacon from the first pan, kept the oil hot, and made three latkes with the potato mixture, cooking them so that they were crispy and brown on both sides. Then I seared the scallops for about two minutes on each side. I anointed one latke with a dollop of sour cream (of course) and some chopped fresh dill, then I strewed crumbled bacon over the scallops. On the side I had a butter lettuce, tomato, marinated cucumber, and feta salad with a German mustard balsamic vinaigrette.
This dish got a 7 out of 10. I overcooked the scallops slightly (probably three minutes a side instead of two), and the prep in general was a little hectic. My sous chef is in Canada at the moment, so I was flying solo. I'm not convinced that potato latkes and scallops are the most fortuitous food combination ever. However, I did discover that the best way to enjoy this dish is by eating it all at once, i.e., creating a perfectly proportioned combo bite rather than tasting each element individually. So a morsel of scallop on top of a sour-cream-slathered piece of latke is really the way to go. It's a rich dish, obviously, so small portions are recommended, and the salad is a refreshing accompaniment. Please feel free to post ideas for improving this recipe.
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