I've been browsing through The Splendid Table cookbooks, and suddenly thought of making ravioli. Not from their books, in fact, just one of those tangential ideas that fly out from seemingly unrelated contexts. Haven't made them for ages.
So today I added wonton wrappers to the lineup of hot Italian sausage already in the freezer for whatever it fits with, and whole milk plain yogurt, and a supply of eggs. I probably only need one egg, but it looked nice to display them all.
I've made my own pasta for ravioli, and it was good, but not enough to justify that much work at least not right now, before I've recovered from the Rustic Apple Tart. So the wonton wrappers are a great substitute. You use them for dumplings of various sorts, but for ravioli I find them good, too. I do like cooking the sort of things you plunge into boiling water and wait till they emerge at the top.
And since
it's a while since I made yogurt cheese, which I use in many places
where cream or cream cheese or ricotta is listed, since I like it
better, I set some up to go. Here's the whole container full, turned out into a cheesecloth-lined strainer set on a bowl to catch the whey. This is whole milk, since I want that consistency for the ravioli particularly, but I've made it with nonfat, too, and it's fine but not as coherent as the whole milk version.
And here it's in the fridge till tomorrow, with a glass lid on, to drain slowly, to set up a nice cheese consistency ready to use.
Kept the original container for the whey which will feature in some future soup.
This is all very good, because it means I have to wait till tomorrow for the cheese to be ready for the ravioli caper, fine by me, I can read my mystery story, an Emma Lathen set in the Baltic, instead of pounding about in the kitchen. And have a cup of tea, too. Such larks.
Tomorrow I'll sizzle the Italian sausage, beat in the eggs and some cheese and various spices for the filling and go from there. I'll probably freeze a bunch of them, since you can't make just a couple of ravioli. And they can go with various sauces, but I think I'll make a red sauce this time.
Oh, and a postscript on the Rustic Apple Tart -- Handsome Son stopped in for a cup of tea and a healthy hunk of the tart. I whined at great length about the complications, multiple tools, and various other things and whether it was worth it really.
He listened patiently, so tactful, don't know where he gets it from, certainly not from his parents, and said, well, it was worth it, how soon will you make it again? Oh. So I undertook to do it for some future special occasion.
Speaking of which, Carol G., a friend in stitching and a blogista, mentioned a great cookbook she, herself a seriously good cook, swears by, The Pleasure of Cooking for One. So I've put it on request at the libe, and will no doubt have some adventures with it for your future reading pleasure.
Out of bread again, and as usual wondering what sort to make. Not in the mood for actual yeast bread making, nor hot biscuits, but I found, via their Twitter feed, a recipe from The Splendid Table for Rustic Rosemary Apple Tart. For which go here
That seemed pretty simple, no cutting and crimping, etc., and was a bit like clafouti, which I like a lot. And involved fresh rosemary of which I have plenty. And cooking apples of which I had a couple. So I embarked on it.
Now, in case you fancy trying it, be forewarned: rustic does not mean fast cooking. In fact I am thinking of recommending a whole new way of presenting recipes. You know how they name it, tell you why you will love it, list the ingredients, then explain the procedure?
One huge missing element is: the number and range of tools this simple item will require. Then you could decide if it's worth it. The way you look at a list of ingredients and decide if you're up for that many. To some of us this is an issue.
Here is evidence: this is the dish drainer containing nothing but the items required to make this rustic tart. And it doesn't include the big bowls and knives I had washed and dried and put away already. Just sayin. I did get to use my rolling pin and pastry cutter, which was good. And my pastry scraper. And apple corer. And peeler. And pizza cutter.
That said, however, I did achieve a result that looked something like their picture, if a bit more rectangular
And had a first slice with afternoon tea. With the Yorkshire tradition of a big slice of extra sharp cheddar on the side.
And found it was absolutely terrific. My first shot at flaky pastry, and it was crisp and flaky and perfectly wonderful. The apples were those Crisp whatevers, even better than Granny Smith, never thought I'd say that, and the tart works like a fruit Danish for breakfast, too.
Of course, being me, there were substitutions. They wanted heavy cream and I said no, no, and used plain yogurt, needed a bit more than the recipe said, and it worked fine. And you could have used cinnamon, but rosemary is much better, so I used that. They don't mention parchment paper, but after a couple of annoying encounters of the sticking kind recently with the baking sheet, I did, and that was a good idea.
Handsome son is dropping by this afternoon and will also get to test this one. It's about making and resting the pastry, and is a lengthy procedure largely because of all the waiting for the pastry to wake up, but now I think it's worth doubling the pastry recipe and freezing some for future use. This "simple" rustic recipe reminds me of those endless beauty regimens with the goal of looking natural..
Incidentally I think it's not fair when one of the list of ingredients is: one recipe of Flaky Pastry! which is another whole recipe in itself. But okay, okay, the results are good enough to print this one out and put it in my Big Binder.
And while I was polishing my nails on my lapel and gawking around vacantly while the pastry rested, I noticed the sun had come out, was shining through the hanging plants, and making a natural artwork on the green wall.
