Ravioli again!

After this busy week at work and several dinners out, a little bit of slow cooking was more than welcome! But it was so cold that I didn’t even dare trying to make bread. Indeed, when we arrived Saturday morning it was 2-3 degrees in the house, it slowly went up to 15-17 by the time it was bed time, and again it was 3 degrees when we woke up the next morning. These old Japanese houses are really not meant to be warmed, they are wind breakers, just to live in wearing many warm layers of clothes. And it totally works. But to make bread in such conditions is really hard (oh! Maybe that’s one reason why bread and alike are not traditional to Japan!). The bread takes forever to rise and it’s never long enough! Instead, I simply kneaded some pasta dough to make ravioli. There was some beautiful salmon from Miyagi, some baby komatsuna, and I had some dill on the verge of drying. The recipe was all set. I put the dill chopped directly in the pasta. I made filling by first grilling the salmon and blanching the komatsuna, then put the two in the blender to obtain an almost creamy texture. Rolled the dough in my pasta machine (with the dill I found it hard to roll it to extra thin) and made the ravioli. I served with some more blanched komatsuna, butter for me, olive oil for A. and it was simply delicious!

I wish a good very week, it might snow again in Tokyo!

January 29, 2018

Home-made tagliatelle

As planned there will be a lot of pasta in 2018, and it has already started! For Xmas I received a motor for my pasta machine!!! Not that I am a big fan of going mechanical, I prefer to knead manually, to chop manually, to ground coffee manually… but I must admit that with the pasta machine three hands rather than two were neededto hold the pasta in, hold the pasta out and manipulate the handle, so it was really tricky and to get things done by myself I was flouring generously the whole top and I was making a real mess actually! The motor makes things much cleaner, and the pasta is great: thin and not too floury. I’m starting to be really good at making pasta!

For a change I didn’t make ravioli though I was quite tempted to, instead I made tagliatelle, and simply prepared them with buttered leek and shiitake. I used the same preparation steps that for the ravioli. I prepared the leek and shiitake in a large pan with a bit of butter and at low heat and used the boiling water to keep the mix moisten, and when the pasta were ready I just drained them and added them to the vegetables, added a little of olive oil and pepper and stirred well just before serving. So simple and delicious, invigorating before going back to work!!!

January 4, 2018

Shiitake week! Day 3!

It’ been quite sometime I didn’t make ravioli right?! And I couldn’t wait any longer to train again… in prevision of my visit to Tuscany next month… And with beautiful shiitake, kabocha season and delicious Isumi pork, it was easy to decide what the fillingwould be: it will be all or nothing! Indeed kabocha and shiitake are a great match, the pork is optional but it had really the perfect balance: sweet and savory! So the recipe is rather simple:

Kabocha and shiitake ravioli:

– 1/4 of kabocha

– 6 shiitake

– 100g of ground pork meat

– 1 egg

– 150g of flour

– olive oil

– water

– salt and pepper

Steam the kabocha and puréed it. Dice the shiitake and roast them in a very little bit of olive oil or nothing. Add them to the kabocha purée. For the pork meat, just cook it in a pan until golden, and add to the mix. Salt, pepper and that’s it. For the pasta I used 150g of flour and 1egg, a little of olive oil and water. It made about 35 large ravioli. I also prepared a little mix of olive oil and parsley to top them and it was really de-li-cious… I’m really crazy about Italian food! And when it is mixed with Japanese…

November 15, 2017

Weekend cooking

Beautiful weekend with our normal activities… it seems like it hasn’t happened in such a long time… probably two months or even more with all the traveling in March and April and the visitors in May, plus some bad weather… it means playing tennis, gardening, going to the seaside, and it also means some nice cooking, bread making and pasta. I made two breads: a large muesli and rye bread for breakfast, with a little addition of sugar to obtain a very savory bread, and a classic focaccia, always a success. With the temperatures rising it is so much easier to prepare bread. The risong is do much easier than in the winter. This time for the pasta, instead of making ravioli I made lasagna with my classic pasta recipe, rolled with my pasta machine, some salmon (it’s not often that there is some nice Hokkaido salmon! But recently I found some) and some fresh baby spinach, just add a bit of cream, bake and it’s ready. Really simpler than making the ravioli because you don’t have to dry the filling and wait for it to cool down and it is super delicious.

I wish you a great week ahead!

May 21, 2017

Salmon spinach ravioli

Ravioli, in particular jumbo ones, are one of my favorite dish, both to eat and prepare. Or may be I just enjoy making them because I enjoy eating them so much!!!

This time I made spinach and salmon ravioli, a king of classic I guess, but so very delicious!

The pasta is always the same for two as a whole meal: 100g of semolina or manitoba, 1 egg, 2tbs of olive oil, a bit of salt. For the filling I used 1 filet of fresh salmon and a bouquet of fresh spinach. In a small pan with 1cm of water I add the salmon and the washed spinach. I cook first under cover, then I dry the mixture at low heat after squeezing it into rough purée, add some black pepper. Once it is dry enough I put it too cool down. Roll the dough and male the ravioli. Finally just boil them and serve with cream, butter or olive oil, as you like!

May 8, 2017

Ricotta-basil-prosciutto ravioli

I can’t help making ravioli. And even more when I have fresh ricotta. But because A. doesn’t like cheese too much I added prosciutto to the basic ricotta-basil filling. And I prepared a tomato-basil-prosciutto sauce to go with it. It was a very simple dinner to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary enjoyed in our country house after a very intense week.

For the ravioli pasta, same recipe as usual (100g of flour, 1egg, a bit of salt and olive oil), for the filling I used a pack of fresh ricotta, 3 branches of fresh basil, a few slices of prosciutto. In a bowl mix the ricotta, the basil washed and cut, salt and pepper. After making the pasta and setting one layer in the ravioli shapes, I put a few pieces of prosciutto in each ravioli then cover with the ricotta mix. Add the second layer of pasta and finish the ravioli. Boil in a large amount of water. Fresh pasta takes only a few minutes to be ready, once they float remove and drain. Serve immediately.

For the sauce I used 2 tomatoes, 2 branches of fresh basil, a few slices of prosciutto. Wash and cut the tomatoes and the basil. In a heated frypan or a pan, add some olive oil, the tomatoes, salt and pepper, stir until most of the juice is gone. Then the basil. In the very last minute of cooking add the prosciutto, you don’t want to cook to much. Use to top the ravioli.

February 27, 2017

Butternut squash ravioli again

Last winter I made some butternut squash ravioli with a very simple filling and in small size, with the ravioli plate I bought in Roma last year. This time I decided to add some nutmeg to the filling and to make large ones, where there is plenty of filling. And since I had plenty of sage in the garden seeved them with olive oil and sage. Simple and soooooooo delicious! How do you prefer your ravioli?

December 12, 2016

Craving for fresh pasta al pesto

This weekend Sunday I was looking forward for swimming in the icean and body boarding. We first wanted to go really early in the morning between high and low tide but we over slept and when we woke up at 7:30 it was already to close to low tide, and there nothing more boring than low tide: the water is shallow and very little waves for body bording. So we had to wait fir the next high tide that was later in the afternoon. At 16:30 I was really excited to go but there was no wave… Well at least we could swim… But the 22deg announced on the surf report was not too accurate and it was rather a 17deg, with a little chilly wind blowing… Swimming ended up by trying up to the thights and resigning… Back home… Frustrated… Looking at magazines and suddenly craving for pasta al pesto. The problem is that A. doesn’t really like pesto: no parmegiano allowed and no pune nuts either… So the best option was to do a tomato based one and to rapidly prepare some fresh tagliatelle (yes, I know, most normal people will just open a box of dry tagliatelle…). Now that I know really how to use my pasta machine it’s really easy to make whatever pasta in a short time and without having to wash the kitchen floor to ceiling for the flour eveywhere. So I made the tagliatelle, went to cut fresh basil in the garden, and added really plenty of little cherry tomatoes, olive oil, and that’s it!!! I wish a very pkeasant week!!!

July 4, 2016

Ratatouille ravioli

Yes, I made ravioli again! I was too happy last week to finally masterize the pasta machine and the ravioli mold. So far I was using them but it was never perfect, but now I know how to do and it works really well. And because we love ravioli there is no excuse not to make some! The problem was to find the appropriate filling. Last week I used asparagus, but this time I wanted to challenge myself with something new, something more summer than spring. There was not too many option at the farmers market, so I decided to go for ratatouille since there was everything I needed to make a real ratatouille the way my grand mother would.

So first prepare the ratatouille: onion, zucchini, eggplant, capiscum, tomato. All cut in small pieces, a bit of olive oil, garlic for those who like I don’t), salt, black pepper and a leaf of fragant laurel. Cook at low heat under cover for 2 to three hours, check and stir every 30min. Since we want to use this as a filling it needs to be significantly dry, so remove the cover if needed in the end. Cool when ready, ravioli filling cannot be used warm. Then prepare the dough with the classic recipe: 100g flour, 1egg, salt, olive oil. I actually used half flour half semolina. Then roll your dough until the level of thinness you like (I used 8 out of 9 on my pasta machine). Then flour well one side of the dough and ise the ravioli mold to fill them and shape them.

Now prepare a big pan with water to boil the ravioli, and add one big branch of fresh rosemary for the broth. Keep the water boiling 3min before adding the ravioli. The smell of rosemary should be quite strong before adding them. Cook until they come back to float on the surface. Serve immediately, just with olive oil and pepper. The rosemary broth slightly perfumes the ravioli to bring a perfect balance of taste with the ratatouille filling.

June 5, 2016