Coat the bottom of a shallow pan in tin foil and pour in 20g Lapsang Souchong tea leaves, 50g sugar (my recipe said demerara but I had soft light brown in the cupboard so used that) and 50g long grain rice. Rub the scallops in olive oil, salt and pepper and then thread onto skewers. Hang the skewers over the pan and put on a medium heat at first to get it smoking then turn down low for 15-20mins. My recipe didn't say if I should cover them or not but the fumes meant I needed the window open and extractor fan on full blast which blew the smoke away so I crafted a pointy hat out of greaseproof paper for the smoking pan and that seemed to cook them a bit quicker. The scallops were a kind of light brown colour on the outside by the time they were ready. The tea/sugar/rice mix ends up as this black solid mass in the bottom of the pan (hence the foil to save the pan). The sugar adds fuel to keep the tea burning at the low temperature and I think the dry rice just adds some bulk to weigh it all down and stop it turning into caramel. If you have fish that isn't amenable to being skewered, I'd put it on a wire rack over the fumes.
Whatever you have, I'd serve it with risotto (or salad as a starter) - my crab one was gorgeous but you could do lemon and thyme risotto without the crab and it would still be amazing (just a normal risotto recipe with the juice and zest from 1/4 of a lemon per person added just before you start adding the stock and then a little bit of fresh chopped thyme leaves added with seasoning (and white crab meat if you want) just before you dish up).
Your house will stink of burnt tea for some time afterwards...........
This post has been edited by Mezla PigDog: 25 September 2012 - 12:56 PM