Food Notes > Cooking recipe

Burnt cuttlefish cream with oil and murex

An experimental cooking recipe from Carlo Cracco, the chef who invented “the food for the mind”

by Carlo Cracco

1.3 kg cuttlefish
450 g extravirgin olive oil (preferably from Sicily or Calabria)
18 g sugar
6 g salt
2 vanilla beans
50 green pea sprouts
10 g Maldon salt

Clean the cuttlefish and dry it on kitchen paper for about an hour.
Place the cuttlefish in a large casserole, cover with oil, salt, sugar and vanilla before heating. Place a weight on the cuttlefish and cook without exceeding 62°C for 2 hours. Then strain and cool to 45°C. At this temperature, blend to obtain a cream. Refrigerate for about 2 hours.

200 g murex
1 carrot
1 stick celery
1 scallion
1 clove of garlic
5 white pepper corns
1 bunch of parsley
4 l water
8 g coarse salt
½ bay leaf
50 g extravirgin olive oil

Bring the murex to the boil in salted water with the carrot, celery, pepper and scallion.
Drain and set aside the flesh.
Cook in a pressure oven at 120°C for 30 min with a clove of garlic and half a bay leaf. Then grill the murex on a hotplate with a little oil.
Arrange about 45 g of the cuttlefish cream on a serving dish and place under the electric grill at moderate heat for 7-8 min until brown. Now arrange the murex on the surface of the burnt salted cream with a little Maldon salt.

Oil butter

50 g extravirgin olive oil, new (still green)
25 g cocoa butter
16 pea sprouts

Melt the cocoa butter, add the oil and allow to set in a square mould in the frig for an hour. Turn out the oil butter and grate it onto a plate. Add the pea sprouts and a little coarse salt.

Note: The oil butter is served with the burnt cream to add the flavour of new olive oil.

by Carlo Cracco
02 March 2009 Teatro Naturale International n. 2 Year 1

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