INGER RAVIOLI
FILLING
10 ounces smoked capon meat (or chicken
or duck) 'А cup cream
'А cup Mango Chutney (page 203) Salt and pepper to taste
1 recipe Basic All-purpose Flour Pasta dough (page 206) with 'A cup minced fresh gingerroot added to the dough
SAUCE
PA cups port wine 2 cups Chicken Stock (page 240)
3 shallots, peeled and chopped medium 3 cups cream
1 bay leaf Dijon mustard, to taste
12 black peppercorns, slightly bruised
1. Make the filling: Pulse the meat in a food processor (or mince it by hand) and add the cream. Stop the machine and scrape contents into a bowl. Add lA cup chutney. Reserve remainder to garnish the dish. Season to taste. Chill.
2. While the filling chills, make the pasta dough. Roll it out and fill as described on page 208. ChiU, covered, until ready to cook.
3. Prepare the sauce: In a medium-sized saucepan, combine the port, shallots, bay leaf, and black peppercorns and reduce until liquid has almost evaporated.
4. Add the stock and reduce to V2 cup. Add the cream and reduce until mixture coats the back of a spoon. Whisk in mustard to taste. Strain sauce through a fine-mesh strainer into a stainless steel pot or bowl and keep warm.
5. When ready to serve, boil ravioli until al dente and drain thoroughly.
6. Spoon the warm sauce onto the plates. Put a dollop of chutney in the middle of each plate and surround it with ravioli. Serve at once.
1 AN-FRIED BUFFALO MOZZARELLA with Smoked Plum Tomato Cream
This is like a very sophisticated, crustless pizza. The edge of vinegar in the sauce gives structure to the richness of the cheese. Buffalo milk is the original milk used for mozzarella, but a fresh cow's milk mozzarella will also taste quite good. Plum tomatoes make a nice sauce, but no matter which variety you use, it is important that the tomatoes be ripe. The notion of smoking tomatoes may seem odd, but it is a revelation to taste them and realize this is still a vegetarian dish.
Serves 4
SMOKED TOMATOES
12 tomatoes, cut in half crosswise 1 small pinch salt, per tomato half
6 CHEESE
cups extra virgin olive oil, to cover only (the oil may be reused for salad dressings) sprigs thyme bay leaves
whole black peppercorns sprigs rosemary
cheese)
4 to 6 cups fresh bread crumbs Peanut or safflower oil
8 basil leaves (reserve 4 for garnish) 12 slices buffalo milk mozzarella (you
will need approximately 3 'balls"of
PLUM
TOMATO CREAM
Salt,
shallots, peeled and diced small leeks, cleaned and chopped medium onion, peeled and chopped medium cloves garlic, sliced cup olive oil
pepper, and sugar to taste
pound (stick) butter
cup balsamic or red wine vinegar
bay leaf
cup roughly chopped basil cups prepared smoked tomatoes quart cream
1. Prepare the smoked tomatoes: Fire up the smoker. Top each of the tomato halves with vinegar, salt, and pepper. Place the tomatoes on the smoker's racks. Allow them to smoke for thirty to sixty minutes after the smoke has developed in the smoker. It is important to keep the heat as low as possible.
2. Remove the tomatoes, and skin, seed, and chop them. Reserve the drippings, skin, and seeds, and put the tomato pulp in a bowl.
3. Strain the liquid, skin, and seeds into a small, heavy saucepan. Reduce the liquid to a glaze, then add to the tomato pulp in the bowl and reserve.
4. Combine olive oil, thyme sprigs, bay leaves, black peppercorns, rosemary sprigs, and 4 basil leaves. Marinate the sliced cheese in this mixture for at least 2 hours.
5. Make the bread crumbs, using bread no more than 1 day old. (Two loaves of French bread will yield enough crumbs for this recipe.) Remove some of the crust, cut the bread into large cubes, and then pulse in a food processor. Do not process until fine-allow the bread to stay somewhat coarse. Any extra crumbs can be saved in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator for a few days.
6. Remove cheese from marinade, allowing most of the oil to drip off the cheese, and coat with the bread crumbs. Then place cheese on a plate and refrigerate.
7. Prepare tomato cream: Cook the shallots, leeks, onion, and garlic in the combination of olive oil and butter over medium heat until just shiny. (If using sugar, put in a pinchablespoons red wine vinegar 1 large pinch pepper, per tomato half
or two now.) Cook 1 minute. Add the vinegar and bay leaf and cook 1 minute more.
8. Now add the basil and a few turns of black pepper; add the smoked tomatoes. Lower the heat and simmer gently 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then add the cream, stirring.
9. Remove sauce from heat, remove bay leaf, and puree mixture. Adjust seasoning and hold for serving.
10. Working in batches, quickly pan-fry cheese "patties" in a minimum of hot peanut or safflower oil. Remove to a warm oven (not over 180 degrees).
11. Ladle the warm sauce onto plates and arrange 3 slices of cheese on each plate over the sauce. Garnish each with a fresh basil leaf.
Like you, we who work in professional kitchens are faced with the problem of leftovers, for instance fish products in quantities too small to serve by themselves-things like mussels, lobster, clams, shrimp, oysters, snapper, grouper, smoked salmon, caviar-you know, odds and ends, right? Of course, I'm kidding, but in a smaller way you may have a few steamed clams left over from a party on Saturday night. On Sunday, you can either supplement those clams with some other items, or extend the dish with vegetables, and you have Sunday's supper shaping up rather nicely.