Food has always been and will always be a love of mine, it brings back memories and evokes emotions in me in the same way a film a picture a pome or a song does in someone else.

When I first had this dish it reminded me of all of the cooking shows I’ve ever seen about Mexico and the passion that they put into their food and I wanted to share it with you

Serves 4

50g of pumpkin seeds
1 Serrano (hot green chilli) chopped
A large handful (about 25g) of coriander leaves- If like me you don’t like coriander parsley works just as well
2 garlic cloves peeled
150ml of sunflower oil
The juice of 1 lime
2 spring onions chopped
7g of Parmesan cheese, grated
16-20 cleaned kind scallops or 32 queen scallops in the shells
25g of melted butter

Step 1- For the sauce put the pumpkin, seeds, chilli, coriander, garlic, oil, lime juice, spring onions, Parmesan cheese and half a teaspoon of salt into a food processor and blend to a smooth paste

Step 2- preheat the grill to high. Put the scallops onto a baking sheet brush each one generously with melted butter and season with salt and pepper. Grill the King scallops for two minutes or Queens scallops for one minute

Step 3- lightly spread about 1 teaspoon of the pumpkinseed sauce over the scallops (about half a teaspoon for the Queens) and grill for a further 1 to 2 minutes (one minute the Queens) until they are cooked through and the source has just started to colour. Place on four warm plate and serve immediately.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do, it’s great with a cold beer or glass of white and even better shared with friends