Steve Manfredi

Warm black lip abalone, shitake and corzetti salad

Abalone is basically a large muscle contained in a beautiful ovoid shell. The black-lip is so called because of the jet-black trim around the sides of the muscle. To prepare, first the muscle must be cut away from the shell. To do this, run a small, sharp knife around the edge of the "lip" cutting away from the shell. You should feel with the blade of the knife just where the muscle is attached. Once free, slice the muscle very thinly with a sharp , wide blade knife and marinate the slices in extra virgin olive oil and a little lemon juice.

Serves 8 as a first course

Ingredients

1 live abalone - prepared as above
200g shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 cups cooked corzetti - see recipe
8 cloves garlic, minced
Some young salad leaves
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet or a wok.

When it has begun to smoke, add the shiitake, the corzetti, the garlic and the abalone slices.

Toss for a minute, season then serve on the salad leaves

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Corzetti

Pasta Basic

Method

Make a well with about 250g of plain flour

Add enough whole eggs so that, when they are worked into the flour, the dough is not sticky and not dry

Compensate by adding more flour if too sticky, or more egg if too dry

Cut the pasta dough into smaller workable pieces so it can be easily passed through your pasta machine

Roll it till you have the desired results- about 2mm thick

Once the dough is made take small pieces the size of a thumbnail off the large lump. Keeping your fingers well floured, press each piece onto the work surface with your thumb so that it is roughly round.

Cook the corzetti in an abundant amount of rapidly boiling, salted water until they are 'al dente'.

Drain them and dress them with some olive oil so that they don't stick to one another.