Ingredients

Serves 6

2 x cooked 600g crayfish


Pickled Vegetables
12 pickled baby white carrots
12 pickled baby purple carrots
12 pickled white carrot rounds
12 baby radishes, washed
12 pickled sheets carrot ribbons
25g coriander seeds
25g fennel seeds
25g cardamom
200ml extra virgin olive oil
200g attiki honey
100ml Chardonnay vinegar
1 clove garlic


To Serve
10g oscietra caviar
3 slices toasted brioche
½ recipe of melitzano puree (see below)
Dunn pea shoots
Flowers to garnish
6 pickled quail eggs
5g gold sheets
30g sea blight (optional)
30g green samphire (optional)


Miso Melitzano
1kg eggplant
200g miso marinade (see below)
75g brown sugar


Miso Marinade
250g miso paste
125g sugar
80g rice wine vinegar
100g sake

Method

Crayfish, Miso Melizanosalata and Golden Egg Posh Salad For pickled vegetables:
Toast seeds. In a pot combine all other ingredients except vegetables. Warm then add toasted seeds, infuse for 20 minutes and pass through a sieve.
Briefly blanch all vegetables individually until slightly under cooked and they still have a crisp bite to them. Drop warm into the pickle mixture. Allow to cool.
Using a Japanese rotary slicer cut long thin strips of carrot ribbon. Drop raw into pickle mixture.

To cook crayfish:
Place a large pot of water on the stove. Bring to heavy boil.
Meanwhile place crayfish in the freezer to put them to sleep. Drop crayfish into water and once water has come back to the boil, cook for 8 minutes. Remove from water and rapidly chill.

Miso Melitzano
Combine all miso marinade ingredients and blitz in thermo/blender until smooth.

Cut eggplant into 1cm thick slices, season and fry in a pan with small amount of oil until you get a nice colour on both sides.
After the eggplant is sealed, place into a bowl and mix though the miso marinade and sugar. Toss.
Place one layer of eggplant onto a flat tray. Bake at 210°C for 10 minutes. The high amount of sugar will colour the eggplant quickly. You need it to be dark and caramelised otherwise the puree will be sweet.
When evenly coloured, cool in fridge, and blitz in thermo/blender with ¼ cup water.


To Serve
Cover the base of plate with puree. Arrange each of the pickled vegetables on top followed by some sliced crayfish. Top with a pickled quail egg that has been wrapped in gold leaf. Spread a little caviar on toasted brioche and place half a slice on each plate. Garnish with pea shoots and flowers (and sea blight/samphire if using).

Note: The crayfish can be substituted with prawns if you prefer.