Ravioli

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I have had a hankering to make pasta from scratch for quite some time, but the precision of Marcella Hazan’s instructions have made me cautious. I remember my mum making fresh pasta as a child and it always seemed like a grown up version of Play Dough in its simplicity, but this seemed much more tricky and likely to go wrong, especially as I don’t have a pasta machine. Then I stumbled across a much simpler sounding recipe online which seems to have been adapted from this Jamie Oliver recipe and decided that I would take the plunge…

My friend G came for dinner on Friday and I decided to try the ravioli recipe since he would simply laugh if I messed it up and be happy enough to eat pasta out of a packet instead! Plus I could rope him into pouring extra flour or water into the dough if needed to save on getting my sticky paws everywhere!

And I’m glad I did have him on hand. As usual, the recipe called for large eggs when I only ever buy medium (a friend who keeps hens tells me the large ones are bad for the hen) so I immediately wasn’t sure if my proportions were right. I added an extra teaspoon of olive oil and the whole 55ml of water called for, but the dough seemed incredibly sticky, so G sifted in a tablespoon or so of extra flour and it seemed to come together very nicely. I then kneaded it for about 5 minutes and it was beautifully glossy and elastic at that point and very easy to work with the rolling pin.

I quartered the dough, learned from my mistake with the pretzels the other week and oiled the worktop before rolling the dough as thin as I could with my rolling pin. I then used a shot glass to cut circles from the dough, before rolling them again to make them thinner and easier to fill.

My choice of filling was some chard fresh from the garden, sauteed down with some anchovy and garlic, cooled slightly and chopped even finer before squeezing any excess liquid from it. I thought the iron rich tang of the chard would complement the pasta perfectly, like spinach on steroids. The leaves and stalks had a lovely texture and I put a teaspoon full of the mix onto each a pasta circle, brushed the other half with water and then pressed them together, before using the shot glass to cut the dough again to give a neat looking finish.

This is all very simple, but unsurprisingly since it was the first time I had ever worked with pasta, mind-numbingly time consuming. Making enough ravioli to cover a dinner plate, took me about an hour and used a quarter of the dough. G was almost ready to eat a tea towel by the time I started on the second quarter. I made about 2/3 of the same amount again before I ran out of chard and abandoned the pretence of making any more ravioli before one or other of us actually fainted with hunger.

The home grown tomatoes had been slowly roasting in the oven throughout my protracted pasta session and were perfectly cooked and ready to go so I got a large pan of boiling water going on the cooker and realised in my glee at making recognisable ravioli I had forgotten to oil the plate they were sitting on or even dredge the pasta with flour like the recipe instructed. So my lovely little ravioli were stuck fast and required some almost surgical attention with some warm water and a knife to prise them loose, meaning some of them looked a bit stretched and others had actually holes in places. I patched them up as best I could and cooked them for about 4 minutes til they came to the surface of the water.

Slightly battered, but beautiful!

I drained them in a sieve, put them back in the pan to dry out further on the heat, added a teaspoon of oil to prevent them sticking together and served them up with a splash of ruby red tomato sauce and some grated parmesan on top…and they were great!

The chard worked beautifully with the pasta, the tomatoes tasted like heaven and the pasta was soft and silky and even where it was a little bit thick at the edges in places, it wasn’t heavy or claggy on the tongue, just a reminder that when you think the dough is thin enough, roll it again! But despite this, we were both impressed by the pasta and ate every scrap in record time.

I’ll definitely been making fresh pasta using this recipe again, but making sure I roll, roll and roll again first. Hopefully with a bit of practise my ravioli won’t take all night in future. I was certainly a bit faster when I used the leftover dough to make a fantastic summer vegetable lasagne the next night! I might even manage to take some half decent photos too!

Summer pudding

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Yes yes, I know summer is hiding her light under a bushel right now, but I’m hoping to coax her back by eating a variety of delightfully summery dishes all the while. And what is more gloriously summery (or more gloriously British) than a panopoly of soft fruits?

A recent trip to Brixton’s Farmers’ Market came up trumps when I came home with an old fashioned paper pick-you-own punnet with a handle filled with fresh juicy Kent cherries, gorgeous redcurrants and tiny tart whitecurrants all for £4. The cherries didn’t even make it til teatime, eaten one handed on the patio while reading the Sunday papers. The currants didn’t lend themselves just as well to absent-minded nibbling being much tarter and less juicy. I half-heartedly ate a few and went off to rummage in the freezer for something for dinner…

And while there I espied a forgotten bag of frozen summer fruits from Sainsbury’s and my mind leapt to making a juice drenched summer pudding as a beautiful vehicle for some organic thick cream I happened to have picked up as well. I’m a big fan of the frozen fruits Sainsbury’s sell, especially when on an offer for three bags for a fiver and often buy them to make my five a day more interesting and affordable. The fact that they also make a mean frozen daiquiri is entirely incidental!

I haven’t eaten summer pudding for years and wasn’t entirely sure how you make it, but figured it would be fairly easy once I found a recipe. A quick Google turned up this fantastically easy sounding one from Sophie Grigson on the BBC Food Website that sums up just how easy this fabulous dessert is to make! Especially since my local shop has an inability to sell fresh sliced bread, with all their loaves seeming a bit dry round the edges. This makes them perfect for a good summer pud!

Luckily I had lots of time to make the pudding so I was able to leave the frozen fruits to defrost overnight and brings the juices out as recommended, although I halved the amount of sugar she suggested. However I don’t think you’d be missing too much if you go straight to the heating stage. I simmered the fruit for about ten minutes, before adding a few tablespoons of Ribena and allowing it to cool enough to be able to dip my bread into without burning myself. I trimmed the bread of crusts while I waited and cut the slices into triangles, except for one that I cut into a circle using the base of the bowl as a template.

Once the fruit mixture had cooled enough, I dipped the circle of bread for the base in juice on both sides and began lining the bowl. I dipped each triangle on one side and began making my juicy jigsaw, wedging each piece of bread in carefully to make sure there were no gaps, adding little plugs of bread where needed. I then filled the bread shell up with the gorgeous fruit mixture and realised I was slightly short of bread to make the lid. Some judicious cutting and trimming later and all the fruit was covered and I was relieved that no one would see its hotchpotch look when the pudding was served!

I then put a saucer on top of it all, popped the bowl into the vegetable drawer of my fridge and put a few cans of chickpeas on top to weight it down overnight and allow the lovely juices to soak into the bread and help shape the pudding before eating. This should happen overnight, but it was a full 48 hours before I got back to mine. The juice hadn’t completely soaked through the lid and I was a bit worried that the pudding would fall apart when I turned it out. Crossing my fingers while I did it made it a bit trickier, but I needn’t have worried! It slipped out of the bowl easily and looked lusciously purple and mouth-watering on the plate.

I had a generous slice cut and on a plate with a dollop of thick cream in next to no time. It was delicious. The soft succulent bread contrasted with the still crunchy berries beautifully. The cream tempered the slight sourness of the berries and turned this frugal dessert into something truly stunning that I would servee to anyone. I’ve been eating this for breakfast most mornings this week and as well as tasting wonderful, it keeps incredibly well in the fridge. My five a day haven’t been this enjoyable in a long time!

Suffering fools gladly…

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gooseberry_fool-01.jpg

I was recently chatting with Miss South about the relative dearth of gooseberries for sale; prompted in part by a recent episode of the Food Programme about berries. We both loved gooseberries straight from the garden at our granny’s… the slightly peculiar texture (a little hairy and seedy like pomegranates or tomatoes) and tangy flavour was unlike anything else, and distinctly seasonal. A highly evocative memory of childhood.

An occasional treat, and one which brings back deliciously happy memories, is that of gooseberry fool. Thick cream and fruit, served in glass dishes during halcyon summer weather conditions in the countryside. In my mind’s eye, heavenly. The fact I’ve not had this dessert for so many years has undoubted contributed to a little rose-tinted spectacle wearing on my part, but also led me to crave enjoying this unctuous creamy delight all the more.

So when I saw a couple of punnets in Tesco (I’ve been scouring the markets but haven’t seen any for sale anywhere else) I pounced on them. The particular variety was touted as being sweeter and more suited to desserts than normal, and they had a slight ruddy glow to their green translucency. I was all for following a straightforward recipe for fool, but skimming through the ever-dependable Leon Cookbook I noticed they suggested pairing gooseberries and elderflower, which sounded like a wonderful match. They also suggested mixing greek yoghurt with double cream to create the creamy base, which I thought would add a touch more tang and bite to the flavour. As with all good recipes, it provided a helping hand rather than a restrictive straightjacket… not least as I didn’t have all the ingredients to hand in the correct quantities.

First the fruit got cooked down in a mix of water and sugar (a bit less sugar than Leon had suggested as the variety of berry was supposed to be sweet) and then cooled down. A couple of tablespoons of elderflower cordial got added to the mix (my homemade elderflower liqueur is still brewing away although I’d like to try this again with that once it’s ready). I used roughly a 2-to-1 proportion of double cream to natural yoghurt, then whipped the mix until it got as close to that ever-smirkworthy state of ‘stiff peaks’. The fruit was then folded into the dairy mix, squashed and smashed but still ostensibly whole. This proved to be much better than creating a smooth compote, as it made for a contrasting texture sensation. After dividing into bowls and bunging them in the fridge overnight I was able to enjoy a decadent breakfast course… light, creamy, tart, sweet and so moreable. Yum!

I’ve always liked the British predilection for fools, flummeries, blancmanges, syllabubs and other traditional dairy desserts. These haven’t totally faded from public culinary consciousness, but receive far less attention than they should. I urge you to rediscover the delights of fruit fools as they’re so damn good, and wonderfully easy to make.

Edamame Bean Dip

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Magic beans...

I am a big fan of frozen vegetables. Cheap, long lasting and extremely handy, I usually keep several varieties to hand. But when frozen peas and sweetcorn get a bit bland, I reach for the somewhat trendier frozen soyabeans or edamame from Bird’s Eye to add some Eastern promise to dishes such as fried rice. I love their nutty moreish taste and texture.

So when I espied a little pot of edamame bean dip with chili and lemongrass in Marks and Spencer a few months ago, I couldn’t help snapping it up to try it. It was delicious sweet and nutty with a warming kick, but unsurprisingly it was a tiny pot for the price and laden with oil. I wondered if I could make my own slightly less fatty version.

Back home I got out the soybeans, a nice juicy lemon and some Cap Bon harissa and the blender and pondered what I could do to make this a soft smooth dip that would yield to a toasted pitta or a crisp tortilla chip…and surprisingly my mind turned to cottage cheese!

Here's one I made earlier...

Personally I find cottage cheese on its own to be offensively bland and extremely unappealing, but for this it seemed just right. Low in fat, soft, creamy and easy to blend without an overpowering flavour of its own it would make the perfect base with the soybeans.

Since I was feeling casual in my creation, I didn’t really use any precise measurements. About a quarter of the bag of soybeans were boiled and drained, before going into the blender with the juice of a lemon, a big squirt of harissa, some salt and pepper and about 3 or 4 dessert spoons of cottage cheese. This created the perfect consistency for dipping and spreading with just enough of a chili kick.

Dip-tastic!

I served this for as a surprisingly filling lunch on some Ryvita. The high protein content of the beans makes this tasty and filling without being heavy. It was also just too tempting not to scrape the bowl of the blender clean with a few salted tortilla chips…

Cheap, quick and pretty healthy, this dip has become a bit of a lunchtime favourite already. It stores well in a tupperware pot and is really really good with a  few flatbreads and some fresh tomatoes from the garden if anyone calls unexpectedly and needs a snack. It’s also achieved the impossible and rendered cottage cheese delicious!

Soft Pretzels

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I have long since loved soft pretzels; those artfully twisted chewy doughy salt crusted pieces of joy. I always thought they would taste best from a cart on a New York City street, but then I realised that they can be made by hand at home anytime you fancy one…

I used a recipe from Rachel Allen’s Bake (Page 132) which I’ve mentioned here before as I really like everything I’ve baked from it up til now. Would soft pretzels make or break her winning streak? I was slightly worried as I had an idea that soft pretzels would be extremely complicated. Read more