Grouse ragu with pappardelle, girolles and thyme

Ragu is without doubt one of my favourite things to eat. A saucepan of meat that has been patiently cooked until falling apart and tender, swimming in thick, rich reduced sauce offers a level of comfort and satisfaction that is hard to find in any other food. Add to that soft, buttery strands of pasta or melting wet polenta for and you’ve got a winner on your hands. Just don’t expect to be very active for some time afterwards! 

 
I’ve made ragu with a range of different meats over the years; beef shin and bone marrow is the classic, and lamb, anchovy and mint is a firm favourite in our household. I’ve even lightened it up in the summer by combining rabbit and peas. Once you’ve mastered one, the principle is very similar with others, and it’s great to experiment with different produce across the seasons. Now that game is well and truly back on the menu, I really wanted to have a go with grouse. This almost livery-flavoured meat is not to everybody’s taste, but I love the metallic intensity. Some would say that using such prime birds for a slow-cooked ragu is a waste, but I was really happy with the results. In my mind cooking the grouse in this way is a match for anything served pink and fast, as the flavours are allowed time to properly marry together.
 
Autumn also sees the start of the mushroom season proper. For this recipe I’ve stuck with reliable favourites girolles, but I really can’t wait to cook with wonderful fresh porcini, and perhaps if I’m lucky, a little truffle. All bound together with some scrambled duck eggs, or carefully folded into a risotto. Now there’s something that will have to be cooked in the next few weeks…
 
Serves 2
 
Ingredients:
 
For the ragu:
 
2 grouse, livers and hearts removed and retained 
4 rashers of smoked, streaky bacon, sliced 
1 onion, chopped 
2 garlic cloves, chopped 
1 carrot, chopped 
A good few sprigs of fresh thyme 
1 bay leaf 
1 large glass of red wine 
1 litre of chicken stock 
1 large knob of butter 
½ a lemon, juice only
 
For the pappardelle:
 
200g Italian ‘00’ grade flour 
2 medium eggs 
1 tbsp olive oil 
Salt
 
For the mushrooms:
 
Two handfuls of girolle mushrooms, trimmed and brushed clean 
1 large knob of butter
 
To finish:
 
Parmesan cheese 
A few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked


Preheat the oven to 160⁰C.
 
Pour a generous glug of olive oil into a large, heavy saucepan and bring to a high heat. Season the grouse all over with salt and pepper. When the pan is hot, brown the birds all over for a couple of minutes on each side. Transfer the grouse to a side plate and add the bacon to the empty pan. Fry for a couple of minutes until slightly caramelised, then add the onion, carrot, garlic, thyme and bay leaf. Continue to cook for a further 3-4 minutes. Pour in the red wine, bring to the boil and allow to reduce by half. Return the grouse to the pan and cover with the chicken stock. Bring back to the boil, then tuck a sheet of greaseproof paper over the top, and cover the pan with a lid. Carefully slide the pan into the oven cook for 45 minutes, or until the flesh on the grouse is very tender. 

 
When the grouse are cooked, remove them from the pan and allow to cool slightly. Using your hands, strip all of the meat from the crowns and legs, making sure to avoid all bones and shot. Shred finely. Strain the cooking liquid through a sieve into a large frying pan and discard all of the solids. Set the pan onto a high heat and reduce the liquid by two-thirds, until slightly thickened and intensified in flavour. Stir the grouse meat back into the sauce. Set aside until needed later.
 
While the grouse is cooking, make the pasta. Pour the flour into a mixing bowl and use a wooden spoon to make a well in the middle. Crack in the eggs, pour in the olive oil and add a generous pinch of salt. Mix the liquid into the flour until a dough is formed, then use your hands to knead for 8-10 minutes, until springy and smooth in texture. Wrap with cling film and put in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes. 

 
When the pasta dough has rested, use a pasta machine or rolling pin to roll into thin sheets. Cut the pasta into thick pappardelle with a sharp knife.
 
Bring a large frying pan to a high heat and add the butter for the mushrooms. Scatter in the mushrooms, along with a good pinch of seasoning. Fry for 3-4 minutes, tossing frequently, until golden brown on all sides. Set aside.
 
Fill up a large saucepan with water and add plenty of salt. Bring to the boil.
 
Gently reheat the grouse ragu in the frying pan. Very finely chop the grouse livers and hearts and stir through the sauce.
 
When the water is hot, add the fresh pasta and boil for 2 minutes. Use tongs to transfer the pappardelle into the grouse pan, along with the girolle mushrooms, the remaining butter, thyme leaves, a good grating of parmesan cheese and the lemon juice. Toss everything together really well, and continue to cook together for a further minute or two. If the sauce needs loosening slightly, add a small amount of the pasta cooking water.
 
To serve, pile the pappardelle onto plates and finish with more grated parmesan and a good crack of black pepper.

Farfalle with ‘nduja, anchovies, red wine and cherry tomatoes

It’s been a while since my last post. Tragically, my twin brother died very suddenly just before Christmas after a very short battle with cancer. All thoughts of cooking flew out the window as my family came together to support each other through the most difficult time imaginable.

I’ve only been back in London a week or so, and it feels good to slowly get back into a normal routine, even though I’m not sure I know what normality feels like anymore. Like many other food centrics, cooking proves therapeutic and healing, and never more so than in the last couple of weeks. Luckily, I’ve had some spare time on my hands recently, so I’ve had afternoons to tuck my head into the butchers, and time to nosy about the green grocers again. I’m finally itching to get back in the kitchen, and with thoughts firmly on my wonderful brother, this was always going to be my first post… 

The inspiration for this recipe is the pasta of my youth. It was one of the first things that I was confident in cooking, and would cook it at any given opportunity. When my parents went on holidays I was always in charge of the cooking, and invariably we would eat this dish two or three times over that period. This became my brother’s favourite, and we would gorge on it until we were fit to burst before laying on the sofa groaning in pain. When we stopped living in the same house, he would always phone me to be reminded of the recipe, complaining that he had tried to make it but it hadn’t been “quite right”. 

Of course in those days I hadn’t even heard of things like ‘nduja, and it was a good few years until I would learn to make pasta. The sauce would be made with chorizo or bacon, mixed with a tin of chopped tomatoes and then poured over whatever dried pasta we had in the cupboard. This recipe is slightly more refined, but the taste still brings back warm happy memories. 

‘Nduja seems to be a very trendy ingredient at the moment in restaurants and food blogs, but despite this it’s still relatively difficult to get hold of. It gave me a great excuse to head to Borough Market where I found a wonderful British made variety. The texture of the soft salami is similar to those I have tried before, but the taste is slightly less spicy and more fragrant with fennel seeds. Delicious. My brother always hated anchovies, but accepted them in this sauce as they just melt away and enhance all of the other flavours. 

Although my reasoning for making farfalle in this recipe was in tribute to the random pasta shapes that we used to find at home, the shape is very suitable with the sauce. The large surface area grips the sauce meaning that you get a good taste with every mouthful.

Serves 2 

Ingredients: 

For the pasta: 

200g ‘00’ grade flour
2 medium eggs
1 tbsp olive oil
Good pinch of salt 

For the sauce: 

1 shallot, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
½ red chilli, finely chopped
1 tsp smoked sweet paprika
1 tsp fennel seeds
3 sprigs rosemary, finely chopped
4 anchovy fillets, roughly chopped
80g ‘nduja, skinned and chopped roughly
1 glass red wine
15-20 very small ripe cherry tomatoes, quartered
Olive oil 
Salt and pepper

To finish: 

Parmesan, finely grated
Basil leaves
Extra virgin olive oil


To make the pasta, put the flour, eggs, salt and oil into a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Tip out onto a clean surface and knead well for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic in texture. Wrap with clingfilm and allow to rest in the fridge for at least half an hour. 

Remove the dough from the fridge and roll through the thickest setting 6-10 times, folding after each pass. Lightly dust the sheet with flour then pass once down through the settings until you reach the thinnest. Lay the long, thin pasta sheet onto a floured surface. To make the farfalle, cut small rectangles out of the sheet and shape them by gently pushing out the middle and folding in the narrow sides to form a bow tie. Put each one on a lightly floured sheet of greaseproof paper. They can be used straight away, but are best after allowed to dry for a few hours.
Fill a large saucepan with well salted water and bring to the boil. 

To make the sauce, heat a little olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Cook the shallot, garlic, rosemary, fennel seeds, chilli and paprika over a medium heat for a few minutes until softened. Season a little. Add the ‘nduja and anchovy and continue to fry for another few minutes, stirring until they almost melt into the mixture. Turn the heat up slightly and pour in the red wine and allow to reduce by half. Stir in the quartered tomatoes until slightly softened.

Tip the farfalle into the boiling water and cook for 1-2 minutes. When cooked, use a slotted spoon and transfer the pasta to the frying pan with the sauce, along with 1 tbsp of the cooking water. Stir gently to combine the sauce and pasta and cook for a further minute. Taste and season if necessary.

Transfer the coated pasta to warmed plates and top with basil leaves, grated parmesan, cracked pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Fresh penne with rainbow chard, smoked bacon, Tunworth Soft Cheese and chilli and saffron oil

That meal at Trullo a couple of weeks ago was really inspiring. It was exactly the type of food that I love eating and making. It got me thinking about my own cooking, and as soon as I got home I scribbled down a long list of new things that I wanted to make. Panna cottas and roasted fish will be made in the future, but for now I really wanted to make some pasta. This isn’t anything new, making pasta is a bit of an obsession of mine, but it got me thinking about new varieties and ingredients to serve it with. 

I didn’t have to think too hard about what was going to be bedfellows with my fresh pasta. Autumn is such a visual month for seasonal produce, and my local greengrocer is an explosion of colour. Multi-coloured pumpkins and beetroots line the shelves, but for this recipe I went straight for the chard. A more beautiful leafy vegetable is hard to imagine, with vibrant pink and orange running in thick veins into dark green. Chard offers a way more interesting taste and texture to something more often used like spinach, and it is just perfect for this recipe. I like to cut the stalks away from the leaves and cook these for longer, as the leaves only take a minute or two. Bacon is the perfect partner, and make sure you get good smoked bacon from your butchers to bounce off the tangy greens. 

I found the variety of pasta to make a bit more challenging. I really like spaghetti and pappardelle, but I realised that I have flogged these to death in this blog and wanted to do something a little different. I recently saw something that looked like homemade penne on a tv programme and thought that this would be just the opportunity to give it a go. It’s actually really easy, and once you get used to it is fairly quick; just like making lots of tiny cannellonis. The shape works really well with this recipe, as the flavoured oil, cheese and bits of bacon get stuck in the middles. 
 

The final bit of inspiration gained this week was from reading the new Pit Cue Co cookbook. Although there isn’t even a hint of a pasta strand amongst all the amazing looking barbecue food, there are still techniques in there that can be transferred to other cooking. One recipe in the book is for courgettes with grated Tunworth Soft Cheese. Tunworth is a really incredible English camembert-style cheese, truly pungent yet mellow and flavoursome. I had never thought of grating a soft cheese, but in the book it is frozen to make it hard enough. The tangy cheese works brilliantly with the rest of the ingredients in this recipe, but use it sparingly. It is a case of finding the balance of flavours and not overpowering the chard, which is really the star of the show.  

Serves 2

Ingredients:

For the pasta:

200g ‘00’ grade flour
2 medium eggs
1 tbsp olive oil
A large pinch of salt

1 egg, beaten

For the saffron and chilli oil:

200ml olive oil  
A large pinch of saffron 
½ a lemon, zest only
2-5 small dried chillies (to taste), finely chopped
A little salt

For the chard:

3 large stalks of rainbow chard, leaves ripped into pieces and stalks cut into thin sticks  
2 slices smoked streaky bacon, thinly sliced 
1 shallot, finely chopped 
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 glass of dry white wine
½ a lemon, juice only
Salt and pepper

To finish:

30g Tunworth Soft Cheese, frozen
Black pepper


Make the pasta dough by adding the flour, 2 eggs, salt and oil to a food processor, and mixing until the contents resemble coarse breadcrumbs. Tip out onto a clean surface and knead the mixture into a dough, continuing for 5-10 minutes until smooth and very elastic in texture. Wrap with cling film and put in the fridge to rest for at least half an hour. 
 

To make the flavoured oil, add all of the ingredients to a small saucepan and heat up until just too hot to touch. Remove from the heat, cover the saucepan with clingfilm and allow to cool.

When the pasta dough has rested, roll it through the widest setting of a pasta machine a number of times, until the dough is smooth, firm and shiny on every pass. Dust with flour, then roll down through each setting until it passes through the second thinnest; number 5 on an Imperia machine. Cut the long sheet into rectangles approx 3” x 1.5” in size. Brush a little of the beaten egg along one of the long edges, then carefully roll each piece into a tube, with just a millimetre of two overlapping. Gently seal the joint from the inside with a skewer, then put on a greaseproof sheet and allow to dry for about an hour. 
 

Put a large saucepan of well-salted water on to boil.

When the water has nearly boiled, heat a large frying pan to a medium temperature and add a little olive oil. Fry the bacon until it starts to crisp, then add the shallot, garlic and a little seasoning. When the shallot is tender add the chard stalks and cook for about 2-3 minutes. Turn the heat up slightly then pour in the white wine and allow to boil and bubble.

At this point, add the penne tubes to the boiling water and cook for two minutes.

As soon as the pasta goes in, add the chard leaves to the frying pan. Cook for two minutes, by which time the pasta should be just cooked. Transfer the pasta to the frying pan using a slotted spoon, squeeze the lemon juice and sprinkle over some seasoning. Grate over half of the Tunworth and combine the frying pan mixture well.

To serve, spoon the pasta and chard into shallow bowls and drizzle over some of the chilli and saffron oil. Grate over move of the cheese and sprinkle some cracked black pepper.

Spaghetti Vongole

Just like the seared fillet recipe in the last post, vongole is as simple as can be but is a firm favourite in our flat. When Katie went away recently with work, I asked what she wanted me to make for her return. Her quick reply was “vongole!”, so it had to be just that. I was kind of disappointed at first, as I was thinking of something luxurious and intricate that I would spend the whole day cooking. I thought and thought of ways that I could elevate the simple pasta dish to a higher lever; adding langoustines, lobster, a shellfish sauce etc, but anything that I wanted to do took away from the distinctive clean tastes of sweet clams, dry wine, garlic, chilli and lemon. And not a lot else. Soon I had gone full circle and simply wanted to try and maximise those basic flavours. The fact of the matter is a good vongole on a warm evening is one of the best things that you can eat. It’s one of those dishes that can instantly make you feel like you’re on holiday.

The only extra thing that I did was make the pasta myself. Most of the time I just snip off the top of a packet of dried pasta and the dish is ready in minutes, but I wanted to add that special touch. I have met many people who snub the idea of homemade pasta and think it’s a waste of time, but for me the taste and texture that you can achieve by making it fresh can make even the simplest dishes incredible. And it really doesn’t take that long once you get the hang of it. You can even freeze the dough then simply thaw out and roll!

I like my finished vongole to be quite winey and lemony to taste, so feel free to adjust the levels to your taste.

Serves 2-3 as a main course:

For the sauce:

800g live clams
1.5 glasses dry white wine
2 shallots, very finely chopped
1 red chilli, very finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
4 tbsp flat leaf parsley, very finely chopped

2 lemons, juice only
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

For the pasta:

400g ’00’ grade flour
4 eggs
2 tbsp olive oil
Large pinch of Salt


To make the pasta, combine all of the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Tip out onto a clean surface and knead together for 5-10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic in texture. It should be soft but not sticky. Wrap well with cling film and allow to rest for at least half an hour, preferably longer.

Once rested, unwrap and roll through a pasta machine around 10 times at the widest setting, folding after each pass. This will make the dough much easier to work with. Next pass the dough through the narrower settings, one at a time until the second thinnest (number 5 on a Imperia machine). You should have a long sheet of thin pasta. Cut the sheet to the length that you want the spaghetti to be, then cut using the spaghetti attachment. Flour the cut pasta lightly and lay on a rack, keeping the strands as separate as possible. Set aside until needed.

Fill a large saucepan with water, add a good amount of salt and bring to the boil.

Heat a large frying pan or skillet to a medium temperature and add 2 tbsp of olive oil. Fry the shallot, garlic and chilli for a couple of minutes until softened, seasoning as you go. Turn the heat up slightly, add the white wine and bring to the boil. When the alcohol has burned off tip in the clams and cover the pan with a lid. Shake the pan gently and keep covered until the clams have opened, about 2-3 minutes.

While the clams have been cooking for a minute add your pasta to the saucepan of boiling water. Cook for 1-2 minutes, tasting a strand occasionally to make sure that it is al dente.

You want to try and time it so that the clams and pasta cook at the same time.

Once the clams have opened, transfer the cooked pasta into the pan using some tongs, along with 3 tbsp of the cooking water. Combine well, agitating the pasta to release to gluten and thicken the sauce. Add the juice of one lemon, the parsley, salt and pepper and a good glug of olive oil and combine again. Taste to make sure that there is enough seasoning and lemon.

Spoon into shallow bowls and squeeze some more lemon over the top, along with a drizzle of olive oil and some cracked pepper. Simple as that!

Pea, mint and almond tortellini with black pudding, crispy bacon and peashoots

Another day, another pasta recipe... I really am addicted to pasta, and could make and eat every day of the week. In this country is has a stereotypical association with stodgy student food, but it is so much more than that! With a little thought, you can make a lovely pasta dish out of pretty much anything that you’ve got in the fridge; and that’s exactly what I did with this recipe. 

Normally I leave making fresh pasta for weekends, or when I have a bit of time to cook something nice. It’s something that I like not to rush, and although with a bit of practice it’s quick to make, I find that taking my time with it makes the whole process lovely and therapeutic. On this occasion, I had made a batch of pasta a week before for a dinner party, and froze the cricket ball sized leftover dough. I didn’t really have a plan for it at the time, but it was too good to waste and definitely came in handy. All I had to do was take it out of the freezer the night before and it was all ready to roll out when I got home from work. 

I fancied making filled pasta again, and what I had in my fridge and freezer left me in no doubt as to what I wanted to put in it (or basically that was all I had in so had very little choice...). I had some peas in the freezer, and some bits left over from a previous breakfast and thought that they 

 go well together. Peas with bacon or black pudding is quite a classic combination with things like scallops or liver, so I was sure that it would work here too. Perhaps unsurprisingly it did, with the fresh and zesty peas contrasting beautifully with the salty bacon and the earthy black pudding. 

The best thing about it is that it is so easy to put together, and if you already have the pasta dough made then it’s so quick. Perfect for that night after work where you fancy something tasty but can’t really be bothered. For vegetarians, the basis of this recipe can remain the same, but the bacon and black pudding can be substituted with a nice tangy hard goat's cheese.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

For the pasta:

200g 00 Flour

2 medium eggs

1 tsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

For the filling:

250g frozen peas

125g good ricotta cheese

1/2 bunch mint leaves

2 spring onions, chopped

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

2 tbsp ground almonds

2 tbsp finely grated parmesan

1 lemon, juice only

Salt and pepper

For the butter sauce: 

80g butter

3 slices of bacon, chopped into small pieces

Salt and pepper

To finish:

6 slices of black pudding 

1 handful peashoots

1 tbsp finely grated parmesan

First make the tortellini filling. Saute the spring onion and garlic until softened and add to a food processor with the ricotta, mint, ground almonds, parmesan, lemon juice and seasoning. Heat up a small saucepan of water until boiling and add the peas. Cook for a couple of minutes until tender and sweet before draining. Run the peas under cold water to stop the cooking and leave to dry off for a couple of minutes (tipping onto kitchen paper speeds this up). Add most of the peas to the food processor and blitz everything together until smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning and lemon, then stir in the few remaining peas for a bit of texture. Set aside until you are ready to fill the pasta.

Now make the pasta. Put the flour, eggs and a good pinch of salt in a food processor, and blitz until the mix looks like coarse breadcrumbs. Tip everything out onto a floured surface and knead together until the dough has an elastic texture but is not sticky. Knead in a little flour if necessary. Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for half an hour to rest.

After half an hour, remove the pasta dough from the fridge. Using your pasta machine, roll the dough until it goes through the thinnest setting and you have a long, almost translucent sheet. Cut the pasta into 4” squares on a well floured surface, and spoon a large tablespoon of the filling into the middle of each square. Brush a small amount of water onto one half of the pasta sheet, and carefully fold diagonally to form a triangle with the pocket of filling sealed in. As you fold, push out any air that is trapped inside. Using a pastry cutter, cut around the folded triangles to make little neat semicircles. Holding one semicircle in one hand, gently form a dimple in the middle with your thumb and wrap the two corners around your thumb, then sealing with a little water. Sprinkle with a little flour and set aside in the fridge on some greaseproof paper until needed. Repeat until you have 6 tortellini (3 per person).

Heat up a saucepan on a medium-high heat with a little olive oil, and fry the bacon pieces until crispy. Remove and set aside, and remove any excess oil from the pan but do not clean. 

Fill a saucepan with water, season with salt and bring to the boil. 

While the water is boiling, cook the black pudding. Carefully cut the slices so that they are just bigger than the tortellini. Save the other bits to add to breakfast. Heat a non-stick frying pan with a little olive oil on a medium heat. Fry the black pudding for 3 minutes per side. 

Heat up the saucepan used for the bacon to a medium-high heat and add the butter. When the butter turns a light brown colour and is foaming, add the crispy bacon bits. Taste and season.

When the water has boiled, and the black pudding and butter sauce have 2 minutes to go, put the tortellini into the boiling water. Cook for 2 - 2 1/2 minutes before carefully removing with a slotted spoon. 

To plate up, arrange the black pudding on the plate and top each one with a tortellini. Spoon over a good amount of the bacon butter sauce, sprinkle with parmesan and finish with some peashoots. 

Scallop and crab ravioli with basil oil, tomatoes and fennel fronds

When I cooked crab for this blog a couple of months ago, it made me realise that I really don’t eat enough of it. It ticks all of the boxes, with wonderful sweet flavour, great sustainability and reasonably priced. On that occasion I served it very simply, boiled and then eaten with fresh bread and lemony mayo. While this was delicious, it also inspired me to think of loads of other ways to use it; crab tian, crab roll, crab linguine, crab green thai curry... you get the picture! 

Crab ravioli is a really lovely way to make the most out of fresh crab, with light fresh summery flavours. Cooking a fresh live crab and then making pasta may seem like a major hassle, especially for a starter, but there are loads of ways that you can turn it into a quicker meal. When I tested the recipe for this blog I made it as a midweek, after work meal. To save time, the crab can be cooked in advance, or you can buy one that has been already cooked and dressed from a decent fishmonger. Once you have this, the only time consuming thing is making the pasta, but after a few practices this process speeds up dramatically. To make the meal really quick, you can even make the ravioli well in advance and freeze it until needed. This would be great for when having friends over as all you have to do is thaw it out and prepare the finishing touches. 

Skinning tomatoes and adding fennel fronds may also seem like too much work, but it is all worth it. By discarding the bitter skin and seeds you are left with just the sweet flesh, and the texture harmonises with everything else on the plate. The fennel adds a subtle, fresh flavour and makes the dish look delicate and inviting. 

Scallops and crab are both very delicate flavours, and mixing them with lemon, chilli and herbs lets that flavour really shine through. As with sourcing anything, try and find local, independent suppliers who will often be able to give you the best quality produce. I only use a little of the brown crab meat in this recipe, spread the leftovers on hot toast with a squeeze of lemon.

Serves 4 

Ingredients:

For the pasta:

400g strong 00 flour

4 eggs

salt and pepper

For the filling:

1 crab, cooked, white and brown meat removed

8 scallops

2 small red chillies, finely chopped (or to taste)

2 lemons, juice only

Small handful parsley, finely chopped 

40g butter, melted

To finish:

4 tomatoes

1 small chilli, finely chopped

Large handful fresh basil

Extra virgin olive oil

1 lemon, juice only

Fennel fronds 

Rocket leaves (optional)

Make your pasta by putting the flour, eggs, a good pinch of salt and olive oil in a food processor, and blitz until the mix looks like coarse breadcrumbs. Tip everything out onto a floured surface and knead together until the dough has an elastic texture but is not sticky. Knead in a little flour if necessary. Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least half an hour to rest.

While the pasta is resting, make the ravioli filling. Put all of the white crab meat and 2 tbsp of the brown meat into a bowl, and add the chilli, parlsley, half the lemon juice and salt and pepper. Mix well and stir in the cool melted butter. Taste the mixture before you add the raw scallops and adjust with the remaining lemon, you want to slightly over-season the mixture to cater for this. Chop the scallops, but not too finely as you want the cooked filling to have texture. Mix everything together for a final time and set aside.

After you have made the filling and once rested, remove the pasta dough from the fridge. Using your pasta machine, roll the dough through until it’s at it’s finest setting and you are left with a long sheet - you want the finished ravioli to have nice thin pasta.

Roughly mark on one of the pasta sheets with the pastry cutter that you are using for your ravioli. Carefully place a spoonful of the filling mixture in the middle of each marking. Brush a little water on the pasta sheet around the filling and then place the other sheet on top. Gently seal the pasta around each pile of filling, making sure that no air bubbles are left. Using the pastry cutter, cut through the pasta around each filling until you are left with the finished ravioli parcels. If you don’t have a pastry cutter then you can just use a knife - traditionally they are square shaped anyway. Dust with a little flour and place on greaseproof paper; they can now be refrigerated until needed or frozen.

Fill a small saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Score a small cross in the bottom of each tomato and drop into the water for 10-20 seconds, or until the scores in the skin start to expand down the sides. Remove the tomatoes from the water and peel off the skin, then cut into quarters. Spoon out the seeds and discard with the skin. You will now be left with the flesh. Cut into very small squares and put into a small bowl. Add the finely chopped chilli, salt and pepper and a little olive oil. Taste, season and set aside. 

To make the basil oil, blitz the basil with the lemon juice, salt and pepper and a little extra virgin olive oil in a food processor until finely chopped and smooth. Adjust the seasoning and pour into a bowl. 

Bring a large saucepan of very salty water to the boil. 

When ready to cook, drop the ravioli into the boiling water and cook for 2-3 minutes. When cooked, remove from the water onto heated plates. Quickly drizzle over the basil oil and spoon over the tomatoes, making sure each ravioli gets some. Decorate with the fennel fronds and rocket if using, pour over a little more extra virgin olive oil and serve.