200 grs. of quinoa
8 scallions
2 roma tomatoes
1 lemon (the yellow one)
5 grs. of gellan gum (I'll explain later)
150 grs.kefir
Water, olive oil, dried chilli, rosemary, basil, coriander (or cilantro), alfalfa sprouts, lime, salt.
First things first, gellan gum is a gelling agent, which you can find at bakeries or places where they sell ingredients for party cakes (weddings, birthdays, etc.). Unfortunately this is the most important ingredient so try to find it please. I'll add a couple of websites where you can look for it. It's cheap.
Dissolve the gellan gum in 100 ml of water, and blend vigorously for 10 minutes or until it has no lumps. Refrigerate for as long and as cold as possible DO NOT FREEZE.
Infuse the dried chilli in 50 ml. of sunflower oil (or olive oil, not the extra virgen one) and let it rest.
Chop the rosemary and basil, and infuse them in 50 ml of olive oil, add salt and a few drops of LIME. Mix and let it rest.
Remove the heads of the langoustines and discard. Peel the tails up to the last ring of the shell and remove the intestinal tract. Store the tails in the refrigerator.
Boil 100 grs of quinoa for 25 minutes with salt and plenty of water. Drain, rinse (in cold water please) and drain again. Spread the quinoa and let it dry. It needs to be as dried as possible, if you can't wait too long, do as I did: Use your blowdryer, but carefully, once they start drying, they will probably fly away :) Once they are dried, finish cooking them in the oven at 180 degrees celsius (350 fahrenheit) with oil until they puff or toast (be careful, they have to be crunchy). Soak up the oil with paper towel and season with salt.
Now cook the other 100 grs of quinoa, this time for 15 minutes only, once again with salt and plenty of water. Drain and rinse, drain again and refrigerate.
While you wait for the gellan gum, dice the tomates and cut the lemon and the scallions.
Tomatoes: Boil water and once is boiling, put the tomatoes and count until 20 Mississipis. Remove the tomatoes from the boiling water and put them in a bowl with cold (preferably with ice) water. Peel them, seed them and cut them in 0.5 cm cubes. Refrigerate.
Lemon: Zest it first. If you don't have a zester, use the grater. Peel it in a spiral and cut the top and bottom. Remove rinds and pith and cut in 0.5 cubes and refrigerate along with the zest.
Scallions: Peel and cut into 2 mm. rings. Soak them in a bowl of cold water and refrigerate.
Now here's where the fun starts.
Mix the 2 quinoas with the gellan gum. I suggest don't do it all at once because you won't need all the quinoa. Mix enough so it looks like well blended and has an homogeneus texture.
Lightly salt the langoustine tails and coat them with the quinoa mixture so they are completely covered, all the way to the tail shell which will remain uncoated and uncovered.
Lay them out on a plate and refrigerate for an hour (I honestly put them in the freezer for 20 minutes, but it could be dangerous if it gets frozen when it gets fried, so be careful).
During this period of time while the mixture is hardening, the rest of the ingredients will also gain texture and flavor, so be patient OK?
Finishing and presentation:
Lightly salt the coated tails and fry them both sides on olive oil (one by one I'd suggest). Soak up the oil with paper towel.
On one side of the plate, arrange the onion, tomatoes, lemon, and coriander for a small salad as desired. Dress with the infused chilli oil.
On the other side of the plate, serve a spoonful of kefir and set the sprouts on top, sprinkle a bit of salt and some quinoa puffs (if you have some left).
Serve the langoustine tail horizontally to the salads on one extreme, and on the other extreme serve a tablespoon of the infused herbal oil.
Enjoy!
