Devoted home cook and food lover Charlotte Ree shares a feast for one from her new heartfelt memoir, Heartbake, a story and collection about the healing power of food.

How to make a filthy martini

I am not much of a fan of cocktails, or spirits in general, but my goodness, I really do love a vodka martini, especially when I am making one of my Single Lady Dinners. I have discovered that I prefer mine with truly excessive amounts of olive brine, which is why this is called a filthy martini. I also know that I must always stop at two!

INGREDIENTS

• 15ml olive brine
• 15ml dry vermouth
• 60ml vodka
• ice cubes
• Sicilian olives, to garnish

METHOD

1. Combine the brine, vermouth and vodka in a cocktail glass filled with ice. Stir all the ingredients briskly, then strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with as many olives as you’d like. I prefer to just drop mine in and fish them out with my fingertips, but you can put them on a toothpick too.

Makes 1

How to cook a steak (with a salad for my sins)

After my divorce, I spent four months dating a man who barbecued a lot of meat. He taught me a few non-negotiables when it comes to cooking a steak, which I now swear by, because cooking a beautiful big piece of meat like this is a privilege, not an everyday convenience.

Along with the steak is my answer to the fact that I love vegetables but loathe salad. A flavourless bowl of leafy greens is such an immense disappointment to me. This is my delicious compromise, knobs of butter and all.

INGREDIENTS

The steak

• 400g rib-eye steak, on the bone
• extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt flakes
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 garlic clove, crushed with the palm of your hand
• 1 small French shallot (eschalot), finely chopped
• 1 sprig of thyme
• 1 tbsp salted butter
• 1 tsp black peppercorns, coarsely crushed
• 1 tbsp cognac
• ¼ cup thickened cream

The salad

• 1 tbsp salted butter
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 30g frozen peas, thawed, or fresh snow peas, halved
• 60g leafy greens
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• zest and juice of ½ a lemon

METHOD

1. Before you start, bring the steak to room temperature, pat it dry, and season it generously by rubbing it with a drizzle of olive oil and a big sprinkle of sea salt and black pepper. Make sure your cast-iron frying pan is placed on high heat and piping hot (smoking even) before you begin – this helps with caramelisation and creates a deliciously crisp crust. When cooking, you want to aim to achieve a medium-rare result and can do so by cooking a 3cm-thick steak for 8 minutes. Cook it any further and your meat will be tough. To cook it evenly, turn it every 2 minutes. If your steak has a fat cap, use tongs to stand it on its side and cook for 3 minutes on each side.
2. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the garlic, shallot, thyme and butter and cook, basting the steak continuously for 2 minutes. Transfer the steak to a chopping board and leave it to rest for 5-10 minutes before slicing.
3. Meanwhile, to make your pepper sauce, add the crushed peppercorns to the pan containing the garlic, shallot, thyme and butter, stirring until fragrant. Remove the pan from the heat and add the cognac, ignite with a lighter to evaporate. This often involves much shrieking and jumping around on my part; it is very exciting. Then add the thickened cream, return the pan to the heat and bring to a simmer to thicken the sauce.
4. For the salad, melt the butter in a large saucepan over low heat, add the garlic and stir until softened and fragrant. Stir through the peas or snow peas. Add the leafy greens and cook, stirring, until slightly wilted. Season with salt and pepper, add the lemon zest and juice, and stir through.
5. To serve, slice your steak against the grain (look for the parallel lines of muscle fibre that run down the meat, and slice perpendicular to them) and place on a serving plate. Return any juices from the steak to your sauce and stir them through, then pour the sauce over your sliced steak, with the sinful salad alongside. Season with a little more sea salt. I am a salt fiend, after all.

Serves 1

Better-than-sex tiramisu

I have learnt that tiramisu is a wonderful thing to eat instead of having mediocre sex. And I have also learnt that tiramisu is the perfect dessert to plonk on the dining table with a handful of spoons at 3am in the thick fog of a smoke machine, under the glow of a disco ball. Savoiardi (ladyfinger) biscuits have a beautiful way of soaking up not only coffee, but copious amounts of alcohol, too.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 free-range eggs
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 350g Italian mascarpone, at room temperature
• 300ml freshly brewed coffee, at room temperature
• 2 tbsp coffee liqueur
• 300g savoiardi biscuits (I prefer Balocco brand)
• 1 tbsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder, sifted

METHOD

1. Separate the eggs. In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk the egg yolks, half the sugar and the vanilla bean paste on high until thick and pale and doubled in size (about 4-6 minutes). With the motor running, gradually add the mascarpone, one spoonful at a time. Set aside.
2. In a separate mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. With the motor running, gradually add the remaining sugar, one spoonful at a time, until you have a shiny and stiff meringue.
3. Use a metal spoon to gently fold a third of the meringue into the mascarpone mixture, maintaining as much air as possible, then repeat in two more batches. To layer the tiramisu, pick your preferred serving dish and spread a thin layer of the mascarpone meringue mixture on the base.
4. Combine the coffee and liqueur in a separate dish and, working patiently in batches, dip in your savoiardi, ensuring that each side of the biscuit has absorbed the liquid. (You want the biscuit to be soft but not falling apart.)
5. Arrange a layer of soaked biscuits over the mascarpone, ensuring it is entirely covered, then spread over half the remaining mascarpone mixture. Repeat with another batch of soaked biscuits and the remaining mascarpone. Add a final layer of lightly soaked savoiardi, cover with foil and leave in the fridge overnight. The next morning, use a fine sieve to dust the top of the tiramisu with the cocoa powder before serving.

Serves 1

This is an edited extract from Heartbake: A Bittersweet Memoir by Charlotte Ree. Photography by Therese Bourne. Published by Allen & Unwin, $39.99. Buy now