An entree from St John Restaurant in London

November 2, 2006

During the recent Taste of Slow festival in Melbourne, I attended a dinner cooked by Fergus Henderson of St John Restaurant in London. Fergus, an architect turned chef, is well known for his cookbook Nose to Tail Eating, and he is a keen advocate of cooking as many parts of an animal as possible. His restaurant menu can include such delights as oxheart and lentils, lambs’ kidneys and celeriac, dried salted pig’s liver, crispy pig cheek and dandelion.

His Melbourne dinner was no exception and with excellent accompanying wines chosen by his business partner Trevor Gulliver, we were treated to crispy deep-fried tripe, the St John signature dish of roasted marrow bones with a gutsy parsley salad,  and the tenderest roast suckling pig (recipe here). For dessert there was cheese, Eccles cakes and then a rich chocolate ice cream. It wasn’t a night for counting calories.

For me, however, the standout dish was a beautiful salad of Moreton Bay bugs and white cabbage and I subsequently managed to twist Trevor Gulliver’s arm for the recipe.

At St John Restaurant, this dish is made with whole Morcambe Bay shrimps, tiny brown shrimp not available Down Under. The name similarity prompted the switch to the bugs for the Melbourne dinner, but Trevor said prawns would do equally well.

“When the dish was first worked [in Melbourne], the bugs were complete, such that it changed the dish into bugs on top of a salad, not the happy integrated whole we like.” So the crustaceans’ tail meat was sliced into small pieces “and they became part of the dish”.

It was delicious, a happy mix of tender cabbage, fine pieces of bugmeat, flecks of fresh herbs and a pleasing dressing – an ideal entrée for a spring dinner.  In fact the dish features in the St John Christmas feasting menus.

St John Crustacean and Cabbage Salad

130gm peeled shrimp (or Moreton Bag bugs or prawns, see note below)
400g white cabbage thinly sliced
50g chervil, lightly chopped
1 teaspoon capers
juice of 1 lemon
100ml extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Slice the cabbage as thinly as you can. A mandolin make life easier. Watch the finger tips. Wash and chop the chervil. Slice the cooked crustaceans into distinct thin pieces.

Juice the lemon and whisk in the olive oil. Put all ingredients in a bowl with enough dressing to gently coat. “No oil bath,” says Trevor. “Hands are best to get the salad happily tumbled.”

Season with salt and pepper.

Note: I used frozen peeled green prawns, thawed then cooked prior making the dish.

Recipe ©St John Restaurant. Photo: Pat Churchill

<< Previous | Next >>