Roasted fig, asparagus, butternut and fillet salad

Roast the butternut in olive oil and a few knobs of butter with rosemary, a few crushed cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, cinnamon and sugar until nicely soft and caramelized.  Drain any excess oil.

Figs – cut off the stalk and make a cross on the top of each fig  and squeeze them a little to open the fig up – push a small sprig of rosemary into the centre, drizzle with a little balsamic vinegar reduction and honey, season with salt and pepper.  Roast in a moderate 180 degree oven for 5 minutes.

Cut the fillet or rib-eye into nice thick steaks and rub them in black pepper – or mixed pepper corns if you have heat a griddle pan and cook the meat as you like it – for me – rare.

Remove them from the pan and place on a plate – salt them and let them rest loosely covered with some tin foil you are going to pour the meat juices over your salad so don’t throw them away.

Arrange the butter lettuce and rocket leaves to cover the entire platter dot the platter with the nice juicy dark burgundy figs artistically arrange the poached asparagus rip over the basil leaves then slice the meat into guenons or thick slices of juicy meat and put on the platter Season the whole platter with a little black pepper and salt a drizzle of olive oil squeeze over the juice of the two lemons using a potato peeler – cover the whole bang shoot with shavings of pecorino.

Serve with grissini and hot crusty bread such as ciabbata.

For more of Janice Tripepi’s Italian cuisine, click here.