This recipe for agnolotti makes a nice change from ravioli or tortellini and they are actually easier to make, which means they are a good starting point for anyone who hasn’t made fresh pasta before.  Make sure you find good eggs if you are going to make fresh pasta. My pasta is so orange because of the amazing fresh eggs I collect from my yard each day, it really does make a difference.

In this recipe I use both whole milk ricotta and whey ricotta. The whole milk is firmer so lends itself better to the filling and the creamy, whey ricotta is better for drizzling. It is not necessary to track down both if you are buying its just a great way to use up all my homemade stuff.

Pea, Bacon and Ricotta Agnolotti (serves 2)

For the Pasta:
100g Tipo 00 flour
pinch of salt
1 egg
1 egg yolk

For the Filling:
125g frozen peas
75g Ricotta
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
50g finely chopped smoked bacon
25g grated Parmesan
seasoning to taste

To serve:
50g frozen peas
Whey ricotta
chopped, fresh mint and basil
Parmesan
olive oil

First make the pasta dough. Put the flour and salt in a bowl and make a well in the centre of the flour. Put the egg and the egg yolk in the well in the flour and beat with a fork. Gradually incorporate the flour until it starts to form a dough then knead to make a soft elastic dough. Set aside in the fridge for half an hour while you make the filling.  Depending on the size of your eggs, you may need to add a little extra flour if the dough is too sticky, or a little extra water or olive oil if the dough is too dry.

To make the filling, fry the bacon until crisp and set aside to cool. Put the peas in a bowl and blanch them with boiling water for a couple of minutes until defrosted then transfer to a mini food processor with the olive oil, mint and basil. Blend until pureed then transfer to a bowl with the ricotta, lemon juice, Parmesan and bacon. Stir gently to combine and season to taste.

To make the agnolotti, roll the pasta dough out to the thinnest setting on the pasta machine. Working in batches, cut out circles of dough using a 5cm cookie cutter.  You have to work quite quickly to fill the pasta before it dries out too much, so I always find this is easier as a two man job, you can set up a bit of a production line then.

Place a teaspoon of the filling in the centre of the pasta disc. Brush a little water around the edge of the pasta then fold in half to enclose the filling.  Pinch shut to seal, making sure the pasta is firmly pressed together. I like to squeeze it flat to make the edge nice and thin. There’s nothing worse than fat pasta.  Repeat until you run out of pasta or filling.

The pasta shapes can now be covered and kept in the fridge until you are ready to eat them. They’ll be fine in the fridge for a couple of hours as long as you dust them in flour or semolina so they don’t stick together. Alternatively they freeze well, and can be boiled from frozen to cook when ready.

When you are ready to cook them, boil a large pan of salted water and cook for 2-3 minutes until the pasta shapes rise to the surface and are cooked to your liking. I like mine al dente so 2 minutes is usually plenty.

To serve, it is also nice to cook some peas with the pasta, then sprinkle with chopped, fresh mint, basil, Parmesan and a little more ricotta if you have some.  I also like a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

This dish makes a great light lunch or large entree.

The other by product of pizza making is the bocconcini. The smallest packet I can get is 220g and you certainly don’t need that much for a pizza, especially, if like me, you like to make white pizzas that don’t need mozzarella. With these leftovers I needed to come up with a quick dinner. I know what your thinking, the obvious option is a salad, but I only end up with these leftovers  in winter when I have to buy the herbs, so a winter, comfort food dish was required.

So there you have it, my crazy story behind a dish that has become a firm family favourite, and one that I like so much, that I would consider buying the ingredients rather than waiting for the leftovers.

I adapted this dish from one I found on the BBC Food website.  I substitute the canned salmon for the fresh variety, as I just prefer it and I use cooking cream or creme fraiche instead of the mascarpone as I don’t want to end up with another tub of leftovers that I have to use, and mascarpone is pretty pricey here.

Salmon Pasta Bake serves 4

300g Rigatoni
300ml passata
60ml cooking cream/creme fraiche
400g salmon skin and bones removed
220g bocconcini/mozzarella
large handful ripped basil leaves
60g breadcrumbs
30g pine nuts
Parmesan to taste
Salt an pepper
olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Prepare the sauce in a large bowl. Mix the passata  with the cream and stir in the basil leaves.Season the sauce to taste. Meanwhile, part boil the pasta for a few minutes less than the packet says. I usually do mine for 5 minutes, as the pasta will continue to cook in the sauce in the oven and I prefer my pasta to be al dente rather than suitable to serve up to a baby.

While the pasta is cooking, chop the salmon into bite sized chunks (not too big or the salmon won’t cook) and rip the mozzarella/bocconcini into small pieces. Stir the salmon pieces into the sauce. You can also stir the mozzarella into the sauce, but I prefer to evenly distribute the mozzarella in the dish once I have put the pasta in it so that I know I will get my fair share.

Once the pasta is ready, drain it and combine it with the passata sauce and pour it all into a large lasagne dish.  If you haven’t added it already, evenly distribute the chunks of salmon and mozzarella throughout the dish and then top with the breadcrumbs, pinenuts and Parmesan.

Drizzle in olive oil and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until the topping is brown and crispy and the salmon is cooked. You could serve it with a green salad or peas, but I like it just the way it is, and plenty of it!

All ready to go!

Well actually this is challenge number 1 for me, but the official challenge number 1 (duck prosciutto) is well on the way and should be ready any time soon; more on that another day, for now back to the bacon!

When I heard about the Year of Meat (AKA Charcutepalooza) I just had to be part of it.  I had been wanting to do some curing for a while and a challenge like this was just the kick up the backside I needed. I work best to a deadline (ask my boss!). One of the reasons I had been procrastinating was the ability to source the correct ingredients required for curing. I wasn’t going to risk poisoning anyone, least of all my beloved husband, so I had to get the real deal! I have read articles about people not using nitrates and nitrites for curing, but the prospect of botulism scares me a little. I had been googling for weeks with little success, apart from the odd article that reports nitrates and nitrites are not permitted for use in food in Australia. This worried me somewhat, so I had the bright idea to tweet my struggle to all those helpful tweeps out there, and sure enough, a couple of hours later some very obliging Aussies came up with the answer, moments before I was going to press “buy” and spend AUS$50 to ship the goods from overseas (I’m dedicated to the challenge!).

Unfortunately, to access the cure, I had to do an 80km round trip. Kosher salt was not easy to lay my hands on either, but with a little more investigating I managed to find a reasonably local source, although it still involved a 40 km round trip. So all in all, a 120km journey was required before I could even start the bacon. This means my food miles are not as “local” as I would like, but from here on in the furthest I will have to travel is 2km to my local butcher, which I think more than makes up for it.

So with the trials and tribulations of sourcing the ingredients, making the bacon was a piece of cake. The hardest part was looking at it every day for a week desperately wanting to try it!  I did have a little crisis part way through the week. As I read and re-read the recipe, I thought the bacon should be releasing more liquid and firming up more than it did, but not wanting to give up I decided I would cook it on day eight as long as it didn’t smell rancid when I opened the bag! Following a good sniff, it seemed ok so I set the oven to the incredibly low temperature and cooked away, or should I say “set” the bacon, as the low temperature was really just enough to set the protein but not cook it.

The cooking of the bacon was an after work task for Monday, and I had to leave it to do it’s stuff whilst I prepped and ate dinner. But of course, I just couldn’t resist trying some bacon once it was set, so Monday nights dessert was bacon! And oh my word was I pleased!  I should probably mention at this point that I have been a member of a UK based sausage making forum for the last twelve months. In that time I have read many posts about home-made bacon, but dare I admit that I overlooked them, often wondering what all the fuss was about. If it wasn’t for this challenge I would never have entertained the idea of cooking bacon, but having sampled the real deal I think it will be a regular occurrence; there is no going back now!

So now to the point of this blog, what did I actually do with the bacon?! On first inspection I wondered what on earth I would do with a kilo of bacon, especially as I can’t actually remember the last time I bought bacon as it’s not a regular ingredient in our diet. When I was discussing the weekends events with my work colleagues that was also their first comment, but a week later we have eaten it all so it certainly wasn’t a problem!

Apart from my sneaky bacon sandwich before work, the first dish to be made was home-made pappardelle with bacon and mixed mushrooms.  I was lucky enough to find some wonderful mushrooms at Eveleigh Market (see previous post) at the weekend and the bacon was the perfect accompaniment. I’m not particularly good with quantities, but here is the recipe:

Pappardelle with Bacon and Mixed Mushrooms (serves 2)

For the Pasta…
200g ’00′ flour
2 free range eggs
Pinch of salt

For the Sauce…
3 slices of bacon about 1cm thick
2 small leeks, white part only
1 clove of garlic
2 handfuls of mixed mushrooms
a small wine glass of dry white wine
1 small handful thyme, leaves picked
1 small handful parsley, leaves picked
olive oil
knob of butter
salt and pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese and truffle oil to serve

Start by making the pasta. Put the flour and salt in a bowl and make a well in the centre. Crack the eggs into the well in the flour and mix with a fork to incorporate the flour.  Make into a dough; you may need to add a couple of drops of water depending on the size of the eggs. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for at least half an hour.

To make the sauce, chop the bacon into 1cm cubes. Wash and slice the leeks. Slice the garlic. Slice any large mushrooms leaving the smaller ones whole.

In a large frying pan, fry the bacon on a high heat until starting to crisp up, then add the leek, thyme and garlic, reducing the heat to soften the leeks slowly. Once the leeks have softened, add the knob of butter, followed by the mushrooms and cook for 3-4 minutes. Increase the heat again and add the wine, allow to bubble and reduce by half.  Finish with the chopped parsley, season to taste and keep warm.

Meanwhile, roll the pasta to the thinnest setting on the machine (I use my mixer attachment which makes home-made pasta easy!).  Chop the pasta into 30cm lengths, then fold in half and half again and cut into 1.5cm ribbons.  Cook the pasta in salted boiling water for 3 minutes, or until cooked to your liking.

Add the pasta to the sauce and mix until well coated. The sauce should just loosen the pasta, it should not be swimming in the sauce. If it is too dry add some reserved cooking water.

Serve the pasta sprinkled with Parmesan and drizzled with truffle oil.

Now that was meant to be the end of this blog, but the bacon was so good I had it the following day as part of a chicken and bacon Caesar salad!

On the third day of this bacon extravaganza, I served it with a fantastic tray baked cod, as Charcutepalooza meets the Nic and Jamie project (see Nic and Jamie page).

On day four it made the best ever BLT for lunch.

On day five it was served, sauteed with leeks and peas as an accompaniment to barbecued, home-made sausages.

The initial plan was to divide the bacon into manageable portions and freeze, but by day six, there was just enough to add to cabbage, and serve with the Sunday roast!

So the moral to this story is, home-made bacon is worth every bit of the effort taken to make it, which was a little for the first one, but now I have all the ingredients, ready mixed in a sealed container, it should be a piece of cake. This home curing lark is brilliant! Bring on the March challenge!