Featuring Christopher McMahon's dish “Creamy Mussel and Prawn Linguini”

My interest for food started at school with food tech and work experience. My ambition was to be a professional tennis player, however I stopped playing tennis and moved from Glen Innes to Coffs Harbour. C.EX Coffs gave me the opportunity to become a chef and offered me an apprenticeship. I would be lost without cooking and find myself happy and amused when cooking or talking about food. I love the buzz and pressure of service, when I get through a big night and have worked really hard it is very fulfilling. Watching people enjoy my food and seeing their reactions is very rewarding.

My knives are my favourite kitchen tools especially for chopping and cutting things up into shapes which I find therapeutic. I like the colours mixing, matching and being able to put my ideas into practice. “The Cooks Companion” is a very good book with references to many ingredients. Jamie Oliver inspires me, as he is always trying to change peoples eating habits for the better.

Every kitchen should always have eggs, milk, cream, sugar, chili, garlic, onion, tomatoes and flour in the pantry. There seems to be a trend in kitchens to stack food on a plate to create height. When creating a dish always imagine eating it yourself enjoy and take the time to do things correctly.

I like food I can eat with my fingers, like “hotdogs with bacon and cheese”,  “chicken and vegetable soup” is great whenever I am sick. An excellent classic recipe is “Mussels Mariniere” which is such a simple dish but ooh so good.

I recall an incident when a kitchen hand accidently mixed up salt instead of sugar in the Chantilly cream and it was served with a desert, we did however receive positive compliments!!

Creamy Mussel and Prawn Linguini

Ingredients

1 brown onion finely diced

2 garlic cloves minced

12 fresh mussels cleaned

20 medium green prawns, peeled headless and deveined

3 cups fresh cream

½ cup white wine

2 cups frozen baby peas

250 g linguini pasta (I prefer to make my own Pasta)

Season to taste

Method

Sweat onion and garlic in a pot. Add white wine and mussels; cook covered for approx 2 min until the mussels open up. Take the mussels out and put aside.

Place pasta in boiling salted water. Add cream to sautéed onion, garlic and wine mix, bring to boil and simmer for 2 min, Add prawns and cook for 1 min., add peas and cook until prawns and peas are cooked. Add pasta cooked al dente with ½ cup of the pasta water. Mix the mussels in to heat up and rest 1 minute before plating. Serve with either parsley or shallots.

Note: Chirico sausage can be used instead of mussels.

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