I had a brilliant idea for a little light reading on the plane; I’d been dying to really tuck into Anna Del Conte’s “Amaretto, Apple Cake and Artichokes” but hadn’t really considered how heavy the book is – even for a paperback. And with the current restrictions on hand baggage, it was a tight fit cramming the book, my handbag and a few emergency packets of Minstrels in my carry on bag. But I was extremely grateful that I brought it along – I starting reading the first chapter “pasta” and started salivating. Pasta with fennel and cream, with garlicky béchamel, with artichokes, with pumpkin sauce, with mozzarella, anchovies and parsley, with a creamy courgette sauce, fish ravioli, with a fontina and cream sauce and all utterly tomato free! Where is a kitchen when you want one? I was just desperate to grab my knife and start creating. And then I espied a recipe for a “one egg ravioli in clear broth”. What was really amazing about this is that I’ve been trying to find this recipe for years. I’d enjoyed a stunning dish of a poached egg inside a ravioli at Gary Rhodes’ original restaurant City Rhodes and had been trying to find the recipe for it since. And here it was, way above the clouds I had eventually found the elusive recipe. Anna Del Conte’s method is to build a wall with a ricotta and spinach mixture onto of the 4” rounds of fresh pasta before popping the egg yolk into the middle and topping with the second pasta round. I have always wondered if I should attempt pressing the fresh pasta round into a mould of some sort and then drop the egg into the resultant indentation before topping off with the other round. This sounds a bit fiddlier and is probably what Gary would do!
On arrival at JFK I stocked up with a couple of US food magazines that I hadn’t read for a while – Bon Appétit and Gourmet. I used to subscribe to both when there was a dearth of food magazines in the UK but now this has been rectified and I read Good Food Magazine, Observer Food Monthly, Waitrose Food Illustrated, Olive, Delicious and Fresh. I used to also try and get “Elle - A la table” and wade slowly through the French. When I picked up the September edition of Bon Appétit it fell open to a recipe for “Soft Egg Ravioli” which as you’ve guessed it was the second time in several hours I’d read a recipe for a dish that I’ve been trying to locate for about eight years. The Bon Appétit recipe used a ricotta and finely zested lemon mixture to build the retaining wall. I have a few Italian cookbooks wending their way to me soon and it will be amusing if they all contain this impossible to find recipe!
Update: I have finally, after first tasting it so many years ago, made my own gooey egg in a fresh ravioli – see here for the results.
The next chapter is “risotto” and one of the first recipes I find is another old much-loved friend – “risotto with lemon”. This innocuous recipe is a favourite of Nigella’s and Anna Del Conte’s recipe appears in “Nigella Bites”. I have mentioned in the past that I’ve been caught out by the quantities as even though Nigella claims it’s a recipe for two, it produces a river of risotto and in my experience is really too much for two, however hungry. Now I’ve got the original recipe with the same quantities I can see that Anna thinks this will feed three to four!
I am hooked!
Now where’s my knife…?
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