I'm happy to report that it is clear that neither I nor my wife has lost the bug of Italian cooking. I came home last night to a wonderful dinner of spinach-stuffed ravioli in a simple, but dangerously tasty, cream and garlic sauce. Once again, a shorter list of ingredients produced an inexplicably more complex sauce, with a sublime texture in which the richness was perfectly balanced by a dash of olive oil, a squeeze of a quarter of a lemon, and a small pile of basil. As I mention in the recipe, the cream may break right when you add the lemon, but a little simmering and stirring will bring everything back together nicely.
Janina grew up in a household of cooks just as I did. Her experience was a bit different, though, as her family emigrated here from the Phillipines in the early 1970's. While I watched and joined my parents mincing garlic, stirring pasta, rolling pie crusts and tossing apple chunks with lemon juice and cinnamon, assembling vegetarian pizzas, roasting legs of lamb with Yorkshire pudding (for Dad's birthday only), and dressing chicken breasts with Dijon mustard and cream; she sat with her grandmothers as they shaved coconut on an ancient grater for dishes both sweet and savory, braised bits of pork in a broth packed with ginger and fish sauce and bok choy, and seared thin, pounded strips of skirt steak that had been marinated in soy sauce and garlic. She helped her mother roll lumpia (Filipino spring rolls) and she scooped out the sweet, perfumed flesh of Manila mangoes.
It is no surprise, then, that a love of food, an almost innate sense of how to cook it, and a developed sense of the development of ingredients' flavors would have followed her through her life. And while I do too often hog the kitchen, I relinquish control of that room to my delight every time. And so we come back to the ravioli. Like me, Janina tends to not measure her ingredients or, for that matter, even remember exactly what she used to make a dish after she becomes inspired. But for the sake of the cooking public, she was kind enough to commit this one to memory. This recipe fed the two of us, so increase quanities as you see fit.
Ten ravioli (any good-quality frozen variety will work just fine)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
½ cup heavy cream
juice and zest from 1/2 lemon
Ten basil leaves, roughly chopped or torn
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop the ravioli into the boiling water along with a hefty pinch of kosher salt. While the ravioli are cooking, heat the olive oil in a saute pan over low heat. Add the garlic and cook very gently for a few minutes, until the garlic becomes very fragrant but doesn't turn brown at all. Add the cream, raise the heat to medium, and bring to a simmer. Add the lemon zest and juice and stir well to combine. (The cream may break at the addition of the lemon juice, but will come back together with some stirring and simmering). Add half the basil along with a nice pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.
When the ravioli are done they'll float to the surface of the water. Drain the ravioli well and add them to the sauce to coat on both sides. Plate the ravioli, spooning over any remaining sauce, sprinkle over the remaining basil, along with a drizzle of olive oil. Freshly grated Parmigiano over top of everything is always nice.
Janina grew up in a household of cooks just as I did. Her experience was a bit different, though, as her family emigrated here from the Phillipines in the early 1970's. While I watched and joined my parents mincing garlic, stirring pasta, rolling pie crusts and tossing apple chunks with lemon juice and cinnamon, assembling vegetarian pizzas, roasting legs of lamb with Yorkshire pudding (for Dad's birthday only), and dressing chicken breasts with Dijon mustard and cream; she sat with her grandmothers as they shaved coconut on an ancient grater for dishes both sweet and savory, braised bits of pork in a broth packed with ginger and fish sauce and bok choy, and seared thin, pounded strips of skirt steak that had been marinated in soy sauce and garlic. She helped her mother roll lumpia (Filipino spring rolls) and she scooped out the sweet, perfumed flesh of Manila mangoes.
It is no surprise, then, that a love of food, an almost innate sense of how to cook it, and a developed sense of the development of ingredients' flavors would have followed her through her life. And while I do too often hog the kitchen, I relinquish control of that room to my delight every time. And so we come back to the ravioli. Like me, Janina tends to not measure her ingredients or, for that matter, even remember exactly what she used to make a dish after she becomes inspired. But for the sake of the cooking public, she was kind enough to commit this one to memory. This recipe fed the two of us, so increase quanities as you see fit.
Ten ravioli (any good-quality frozen variety will work just fine)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
½ cup heavy cream
juice and zest from 1/2 lemon
Ten basil leaves, roughly chopped or torn
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop the ravioli into the boiling water along with a hefty pinch of kosher salt. While the ravioli are cooking, heat the olive oil in a saute pan over low heat. Add the garlic and cook very gently for a few minutes, until the garlic becomes very fragrant but doesn't turn brown at all. Add the cream, raise the heat to medium, and bring to a simmer. Add the lemon zest and juice and stir well to combine. (The cream may break at the addition of the lemon juice, but will come back together with some stirring and simmering). Add half the basil along with a nice pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.
When the ravioli are done they'll float to the surface of the water. Drain the ravioli well and add them to the sauce to coat on both sides. Plate the ravioli, spooning over any remaining sauce, sprinkle over the remaining basil, along with a drizzle of olive oil. Freshly grated Parmigiano over top of everything is always nice.
©2007 Alex Meier-Tomkins/Pine Street Kitchen
Posts
1 comment:
Great picture, Janina! Alas I hope the recipes work just as well even though I can't pluck the produce I'm using directly from the tree! Sigh....
Post a Comment