Tortelli of rocket and goat’s cheese with garlic, butter and lemon

Every year, Katie and I throw RoLo Fest, an evening of feasting to celebrate the birthdays of my sister-in-law Lois and her fiancé Rob. I spend the day in the kitchen lovingly putting together a four-course meal, before the evening arrives and we all sit in the (hopefully sunny) garden outside. A bottle or two is popped open and we all tuck in and catch up. 

 
Putting the menu together is both immensely fun yet immensely challenging. As it’s a family meal, I want to be out at the table with everyone else instead of stuck in the kitchen, so practicality and planning is key. Yet I also always want to do my best to spoil everyone rotten with impressive and elaborate food. In the past I’ve served up beef wellington, guinea fowl ravioli and fast-grilled leg of lamb. But on this occasion the centrepiece was an enormous piece of rolled porchetta, tender and herby in the middle with blistered golden crackling around the edge. I was overjoyed with how it turned out, a future recipe for this blog for sure.
 
Before the pork was served up, I made this pasta dish as a little primi. Rocket often seems to be used as an afterthought, chucked randomly to one side of a dish to add a splash of colour. But I wanted it to be the focus here, and I balanced the deep, bitter flavour with rich and tangy goat’s cheese. The little tortelli were served swimming in a little pool of garlicky melted butter, which is so simple but always a total crowd pleaser.
 
Making filled pasta is dead simple with a little practice, and once the basics have been mastered, the world is oyster with all of the different fillings and shapes that you can make. They’re also perfect for any kind of dinner party scenario, as they can be made and stored hours in advance, ready to be whipped up in a few minutes in front of your guests.
 
Serves 4
 
Ingredients:
 
For the tortelli:
 
300g ‘00’ grade pasta flour 
3 medium eggs 
3 large bunches of rocket, roots trimmed 
150g soft goat’s cheese 
200g ricotta 
4 tbsp pecorino romano, finely grated 
1 egg, for brushing
 
For the sauce:
 
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced 
4 tbsp unsalted butter 
1 bunch of rocket 
½ a lemon
 
To finish:
 
A few gratings of pecorino romano


Start by making the pasta dough. Tip the flour into a large bowl and mix with a generous pinch of fine salt. Make a well in the centre and crack in the eggs, and also pour in a good glug of olive oil. Using a fork, whisk the eggs, incorporating the flour at the same time until a dough is formed. Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes, until elastic in texture and not sticky. Wrap well with cling film and put in the fridge for an hour to rest. 

 
Fill a saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Add a good pinch of salt and the rocket leaves for the pasta filling. Blanche for 1 minute, then strain through a sieve and allow to cool. Squeeze out the excess water from the leaves then transfer to a food processor. Add the ricotta, goat’s cheese, pecorino and season well. Blend until the rocket is finely chopped and the filling is well combined. Tip into a bowl.
 
Use a pasta machine to roll the pasta dough to its thinnest setting, and lay the resulting long sheet onto a well-floured surface. Place tablespoonfuls of the filling mixture along the middle of the sheet, leaving gaps of about 8cm between each one. Break the remaining egg into a small bowl, and use a pastry brush to lightly coat the pasta around the filling. Carefully fold the long edges in over the filling, creating a seal with the other edge in the middle. Use your fingers to seal the pasta in between each bit of filling, making sure to disperse any air bubbles. Use a sharp knife to separate each square tortelli, and use your fingers to seal the pasta together one last time. Repeat until all of the tortelli have been made, rolling out more pasta if necessary.

 
Fill a large saucepan up with water and bring to the boil. Add a very good pinch of salt.
 
Melt the butter in a large frying pan and gently cook the sliced garlic for a minute or two, until lightly golden. Add the remaining bunch of rocket and wilt down.
 
When the water is boiling, drop in the tortelli and cook for 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the cooked pasta to the butter pan. Carefully toss the tortelli to coat with butter, then squeeze over the lemon juice.
 
To serve, arrange 3-5 tortelli onto each plate, along with some of the wilted rocket leaves. Spoon over a good amount of the butter and garlic. Finish with some additional gratings of pecorino cheese.

Cappelletti with potato, thyme, ricotta and truffle butter

Leftovers are funny old things. When I grew up, they would refer to the half-portion of grey-looking cottage pie right at the back of the fridge, or the tatty looking carrots in the veg drawer. Leftover curry or lasagne was the best, really developing in flavour after a good day or two of chilling. As a student, leftover pizza scraped out of the box was often essential to ward off some killer hangovers, getting me to the lecture in the nick of time. Leftovers were just that. There was nothing glamorous about them, they served their exact purpose. 

 
As time has gone on, I’ve often been amused at the elevation of what consists of a leftover. Gazing through twitter, I’ve noticed gleaming plates of ‘leftover’ racks of lamb, prime steaks etc etc. It strikes me as funny how once upon a time leftovers were the thrifty scrapings of dinners, cobbled together to make an extra meal. Now people are commonly starting out with a glut of expensive ingredients. No wonder this country is gripped with a mounting waste crisis.  
 
And I hold my hands up fully at this point, as this recipe is fully based around a leftover truffle that I had sitting in my fridge. That’s right, a leftover truffle. My parents would fall over at the thought. In all fairness, I didn’t need a full, whole truffle for the intended recipe (the last steak and celeriac recipe on this blog), and it’s not as if I could have gone to the deli and bought half of one. So I was indeed left with leftovers, and I was damned if I was going to let it rot and go to waste. I read somewhere that making truffle butter would extend its life for a good few weeks, and that sounded very good to me.
 
The rest of this recipe was easy peasy. When I think of truffle butter, the only accompaniment to it has to be pasta. And nothing nearly complicated either. People give me a funny look when I talk about pasta filled with mashed potato, but it’s a glorious thing. These little, light pockets do an amazing job of letting the truffle speak for itself. And when it’s in front of you on a plate, it certainly doesn’t seem like leftovers.
 
Serves 2
 
Ingredients:
 
For the pasta:
 
200g strong ‘00’ grade flour 
2 eggs, plus 1 extra for sealing 
A good glug of extra virgin olive oil 
A good pinch of salt
 
For the potato filling:
 
2 medium-large maris piper potatoes 
150g ricotta cheese 
3 tbsp finely grated hard pecorino 
3 sprigs of thyme, leaves picked 
A good knob of butter
 
For the truffle butter:
 
A small black truffle 
100g salted butter    

To finish:
 

2 sprigs of thyme, leaves picked 
A grating or two of pecorino


To make the truffle butter, tip the soft, room-temperature butter into a small bowl. Finally grate in the truffle and mix well with a spoon. Lay a sheet of greaseproof paper onto a flat surface and transfer the butter on top. Wrap the butter with the paper so that you are left with a small, sealed parcel. Pop into the fridge until needed (up to a couple of weeks). 

 
Preheat the oven to 200⁰C.
 
Put the potatoes onto a baking tray and scatter with salt. Bake in the oven for 1 hour, or until the middles are very soft. When cooked, allow to cool slightly, then halve and scoop the flesh out into a bowl. Mash well, then combine with the ricotta, thyme leaves, pecorino, butter and a good amount of salt and pepper. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Cover and allow to cool.
 
For the pasta dough, measure out the pasta flour in a large bowl and combine with the salt. Use a wooden spoon to make a well in the middle, and break in the eggs. Pour in a good glug of olive oil, then use a fork to whisk the eggs, gradually incorporating the flour until a dough forms. Tip the dough out onto a work surface and knead really well, until it in no longer sticky and has an elastic texture. Wrap with cling film and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. 

 
When the dough is ready, roll it through a pasta machine until it is at the thinnest setting. Lay the sheet of pasta out and cut 2.5” squares. Beat the remaining egg in a small bowl. Add a teaspoon of the cold potato filling to the middle of each square, and brush a little egg around one half of the edge. Take a filled square of dough in your hands and carefully fold it diagonally into a triangle, sealing the edges around the filling, and expelling any air bubbles. Take the two points of the folded side, and bring them together with a slight twist, so that they meet opposite the remaining point. Crimp with your fingers to seal. Repeat, until you have 20-30 cappelletti.
 
Fill a large saucepan up with well-salted water and bring to the boil.
 
When the water is at a rolling boil, add the cappelletti and cook for 3 minutes.
 
Whilst the pasta is cooking, melt the truffle butter gently in a large frying pan. As soon as the cappelletti are ready, use a slotted spoon to transfer them to the butter pan, tossing them gently to make sure they get covered on all sides.
 
To serve, spoon the filled pasta onto the middle of each plate, and pour over all of the remaining butter. Finish with a few fresh thyme leaves and a little more grated pecorino.

Pappardelle with broad beans, peas and prosciutto

Often when I finish work in the week, all I want to do is get home, eat something quickly and put my feet up. I also cook for my girlfriend Katie a lot, and I know that the last thing that she needs is to wait around for hours while I cook something up. This recipe is perfect for such occasions, it’s quick to make, seasonal, relatively cheap and involves a lot of ingredients that I have sitting in my fridge or cupboard. It also involves pasta, something that I could eat every day of the week and never tire of. Although you can use shop bought pasta, I really think that making fresh pasta is a joy. It adds the the theatrics of cooking, tastes amazing and you can make it in big batches and dry it out so it’s available quickly. 

As well as pasta, this recipe also used another ingredient that I have a slightly unhealthy liking for - peas. I’ve always loved peas, and even when growing up would often have a large bowl to accompany my meals. I then went to university and got mocked for this constantly! I always have a bag of peas in the freezer, and this year I have been growing them on my balcony. I had high hopes for these fresh peas but encountered a few problems - a) I keep on eating the damn things when out on the balcony, and b) the yield from three plants really isn’t that much. So I often revert to using the good old frozen peas, which work absolutely fine with most things. Peas and ham/bacon are a classic combination and give this dish a lovely salty and sweet taste. 

Serves 2 

Ingredients:

For the pasta:

300g ‘00’ flour

3 eggs

Salt

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

To add to it:

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 shallot, finely chopped

1 red chilli, finely chopped

4 slices prosciutto, cut into small pieces

2 anchovy fillets, roughly torn

1 large handful broad beans, podded and shelled

1 large handful peas

1 glass dry white wine

A few sprigs fresh oregano and parsley, roughly chopped

1 lemon, juice

1 large pinch of finely grated pecorino

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

First make your pasta. Put 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 half an hour to rest.

After half an hour, remove the pasta dough from the fridge. Using your pasta machine, roll the dough through each setting until it’s nice and thin, finishing on the setting before the thinnest - you want it to be thicker than ravioli. If you don’t have a pasta machine - you can use a rolling pin but it needs to be really thin. You will now be left with a sheet of pasta, cut this into a couple of pieces with each piece the length of how long you want the pasta. Fix the papparedelle cutter to the machine and put each piece through. Sprinkle a little flour over the freshly cut pasta and twirl into little nests. These can now be left to dry out if needed. 

To make the finished dish, fill a large saucepan with water, add lots of salt and bring to the boil. Also put a little olive oil into a large frying pan and turn onto a medium heat.

When the frying pan has heated up add the shallot, garlic and chilli, and fry for a minute or two until they start to soften. Now add the proscuitto and anchovies, stirring well so the anchovies start to dissolve into the other ingredients. After another couple of minutes turn the heat up a little and add the dry white wine and bring to the boil. Once the wine has bubbled away for a minute and reduced a little, adjust the heat back to medium and add the peas and broad beans. Cook for a couple of minutes, until the beans and peas are nearly cooked. 

At the same time as the beans and peas go into the pan, add the pasta to the boiling water and cook for 1-2 minutes, or until al dente. Note that if the pasta has been allowed to dry out this could take a couple of minutes longer. 

When the pasta is cooked, drain well and add to the frying pan, with a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, the pecorino, oregano, parsley, lemon juice and seasoning. Stir everything together so that the pasta and beans are combined and cook together for 1 minute. 

Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary, then everything is ready to plate up. Serve with a large glass of crisp white wine.