I do love a good Italian cabbage salad - more refined than a coleslaw and more punchy than your diet-friendly green salad; when laid on top of a thin bed of San Daniele prosciutto and mixed with reggiano, it definitely gives an instant wow factor (and cholesterol) to the start of your meal.

I prefer to use savoy cabbage, as it is more flavourful and with a firmer, crunchy texture perfect for fine cuts. I must admit, as much as I would like to improve my knife work, using a mandolin to shread cabbage makes it so much more consistent and quicker to prepare.

Half Savoy cabbage
90% EVO 10% lemon olive oil
black pepper to season
40ml balsamic glaze
300g reggiano parmesean
10 slices prosciutto San Daniele

Combine all ingredients except prosciutto in a mixing bowl, toss evenly. Lay prosciutto on a serving dish and cover with cabbage salad. Serve immediately.

Fresh egg linguini, lobster, johnny love bite tomatoes, basil (in 20 minutes!)

Boil a large pot of salted water.
In a separate pan, brown sliced garlic, diced eshallots, and add cubed tomatoes. Add a splash of dry white wine and reduce.
Add some tomato paste and some dried chilli flakes to give it some color.
Stir in lobster meat and add butter and heat for a minute.
Cook pasta to slightly before al dente, drain, and add into sauce.
Serve immediately with finely chopped basil.

There’s always that dilemma where you have all these lobster shells leftover – and what better way to use them than a classic lobster bisque?

Lobster Bisque

Place lobster shells on an oven tray and roast until shells begin to brown, about 8 minutes. With olive oil in saucepan brown chopped onions and 2 cloves garlic. I like to stuff the lobster head with 2 inch pieces of peeled carrots, and add in a few stalks of celery. Add 2 cups of fish stock and 1 cup chicken stock. Bring to the boil, and then simmer under low heat for 3-4 hours, covered.

Strain soup through sieve set over large saucepan, pressing firmly on solids. Whisk tomato paste into soup. Simmer until soup is reduced to 3 cups, about 15 minutes. I normally prepare this the night before. The rangehood in my apartment isn’t exactly powerful, so the entire floor of the building smelled like lobster bisque. Sorry neighbours!

When you are ready, add half a cup of cream (or more, if you prefer) to soup and simmer 5 minutes. Dissolve cornstarch in 1 tablespoon water. Add to soup and boil until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Mix lobster meat into soup and stir to heat through. Season with black pepper and salt and ladle soup into bowls.

Lobster bisque really reminds me of the small Hong Kong styled diners I used to go to with my family, served next to those super soft brioche buns with a yolk and butter glaze… so while on my trip down memory lane, it brought me to the next dish:

Tacky Hong Kong Style Lobster salad
(so bad that it’s GOOD)
This one is easy. Chop up lobster meat, and drain a can of ‘fruit salad’. Add chopped celery and chopped green apple for a bit of crunch.
Mix with a lot of egg mayonaise. Mmm.

That’s how I used four of those lobsters. I think I just ate the fifth one on the couch with some cocktail sauce, and I’m not ashamed to admit it!

Boquerones are Spanish styled marinated white anchovy fillets which are a lot less pungent than regular anchovy with a citrus, vinegared taste. Serve on a fresh red endive leaf, with half a grape tomato, baby basil, and a paper thin slice of garlic and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. Season with sea salt and black pepper.

Fresh prociutto san daniele with figs – my absolute favorite

I recently got foxtel (cable tv), and even with 200 extra channels, I am still only totalling about 2 hours of TV a week, and that’s me forcing myself to watch tv… because I’m paying for it! I do however, really like the background music in the digital TV guide channel. I know, I’m insane.

2 (700gm) T-bone steak
2 sprigs of rosemary
extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
Cherry Tomatoes, halved
2 cloves of garlic
½ bunch of baby rocket (arugola)
2 large swiss brown mushrooms
White wine – splash
1 slice anchovy fillet

Trim away excess fat from T bone. Season both sides of steak generously with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Drizzle over olive oil, cover with plastic wrap on both sides, place on chopping board, and beat the crap out of it. Yes ladies and gents, let all that work stress out. You can either use a mallet or a roller pin. I have neither, so I used a mortar. Beat evenly until it is about 1.5cm thick.

Heat pan with olive oil, and add one clove of garlic and one sprig of rosemary. Slightly tilt your pan so that the garlic clove and the rosemary is submerged in oil and wait for it to heat up and bubble. This will flavour the oil.

Add steak to pan, and sear on very high heat around 1-2 minute on each side. Set aside to rest. Repeat with the other steak, using a new clove of garlic and a new sprig of rosemary. I ike to rest my meat on a metal plate placed near the stove, so that it keeps warm.

Using remaining pan juices, add some butter and add the mushrooms. Drizzle the top with extra olive oil, a splash of white wine, and cover for a few minutes under medium heat.

Mix rocket leaves with cherry tomatos (I chose the yellow ones)

Plate beef, topped with rocket and tomatoes, and add the cooked mushrooms to the side.

Add one slice of anchovy into the remaining pan juices and drizzle with more olive oil. Add another splash of wine ans deglaze. Pour on top of steak.

Perfectly pink, tender and super juicy. But feel free to serve it well done if you like your meat destroyed!

Much love x

Cooking Directions

This is something you can prepare the night before, if you can be bothered. (In my case, I just had a lot of spare mushrooms – and wanted to surprise my colleagues with a hot breakfast) Mushrooms are amazing around this time of year, including oyster mushrooms, shitake, ceps and other wild varieties.

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
50g diced smoked ham
1-2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tbsp unsalted butter
Around 150g mixed mushrooms (I used swiss and oyster)
3 tbsp dry white wine
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method
1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan, add the ham and fry until golden brown, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and cook over a low heat until soft and translucent.
2. Raise the heat a little and add a small knob of the butter. When it starts to foam, stir in the mushrooms and cook for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the wine and let it bubble until almost evaporated. Season with plenty of salt and pepper. Add a dash of balsamic (optional).

Next morning, you can reheat the mushrooms on either the sandwich grill or the microwave. Serve on toasted sourdough bread, by your computer! 

Perhaps I will do a variation on the raw food diet along with a low carb intake. Now the challenge is for this to taste good!

today’s lunch: Baby cos lettuce, tuna, raw mushrooms, cucumber, tomato, handful of corn kernels, olives with balsamic vinegrette

Other ideas I’m currently thinking of:

Seared peppered tuna on a bed of wakame salad, ponzu dressing
Sashimi, sashimi, sashimi ($$$$$)
Vegetable sticks with organic hummus, paprika
Soft poached egg, asparagus, truffle oil, black pepper
Salmon carparccio, lemon oil, baby capers
Crab meat, mango and julienned cucumber salad
Edamame with sea salt and shichimi (Japanese 7 spice)
Shaved Turkey breast with… ???
Baby rucola, nashi and walnut salad with EVO and balsamic
Lightly grilled Shrimp with fresh tomato and basil salsa
Cold Tofu with paperthin daikon radish, soy and miso dressing
Sydney Rock Oysters with champagne vinegar

Borrrrring… but totally doable! What else tastes great with hardly any calories? It’s time to really discover the world of spices.

currently questionable foods:
Haloumi