Dinner with the parental units

This weekend the folks came over and I got to cooking a quick-and-dirty four-courser, consisting of an amuse bouche of watermelon scallop ceviche, a frozen watermelon vodka cocktail, oyster mushroom and fennel salad, poached halibut with onion cream sauce and orange-chili infused oil, and a strawberry-rhubarb crumble (as well as some bread that my folks brought, which looked like it had been purchased at Schnitzer’s).

The meal was pretty good, although it also taught me a little about adaptation. The “crumble” was really just a screwed up pie. I’ve never been much of a baker, and I dread taking the pastry module in school. I just don’t care very much about dessert…and I’m just as happy with a cupcake from Entenmann’s as I am with an elegant lava cake.

As it happens, I put too much lard in the damned crust, and overnight it turned too crumbly. So I crumbled it instead of attempting to roll out what amounted to a blob of giant flakes. Tasted good, but didn’t have that same awesome tiled look that a good ol’ fashioned pie should.

But the rest of the meal turned out pretty good. Here’s the recipe for that ceviche, which was cripped and mutated from several sources. I’m a huge fan of ceviches, ever having some great fish in Costa Rica several years ago.

Scallop Watermelon Ceviche
1 blood orange (or juicer orange), peeled and cut into segments
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup lime juice
2/3 small dice seeded watermelon
1/2 teaspoon finely grated peeled fresh ginger
1 1/2 tablespoons finely diced red onion
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh jalepeno
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 lb sea scallops, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon cilantro

Dice up the watermelon and orange. Stir together with the orange juice, lime juice, ginger, onion, jalapeño, and salt in a large bowl.

Bring a small saucepan full of salted water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer (the water should be barely rippling). Add the scallops and poach for about a minute or until the pieces just begin to become white, about 1 or 1 ½ minutes. Put the scallops into an ice bath to shock them and stop them from cooking. Drain the scallops and pat dry, then add to the ceviche mixture and season with extra salt. Chill covered for at least an hour and serve in Chinese soup spoons.