FISH RAVIOLI

One of my first memories about cooking is my grandmother making ravioli on Christmas eve.

After dinner, when the rest of the family members had already gone to the church for the night mass, she used to set up the kitchen for her own Christmas rite.

With slow care, alone, except for my silent presence, she used to put all the ingredients on the square table with the simple chandelier swinging upon, drawing charming shadow designs all over the room. She didn’t go to the church in the night, to accomplish what was her duty and pleasure at the same time: a sort of religious celebration.

The freshest sheep ricotta, the best Parmigiano Reggiano, the eggs from her garden, a pinch of precious nut meg, brought by her husband sailorman from his travels through Northern Africa, the whitest flour and the dirtiest spinach, the salt, sometimes gathered from little hollows in the rocks behind the dock and pound in an old marble mortar.

She started to put a big pot of water on the stove, so that it could heat to boil while she was carefully washing the spinach leaves one by one.

Those ravioli with that filling are part of my childhood and believe me, they have been the best ravioli of my life. Ever. For as many times I have made spinach ravioli in my life, no one time the filling had got close to the filling my grandmother was able to do; never the same color, the same taste, consistency. Never the same joy.

If making them was her religious practice, eating them was mine.

Perhaps this is the reason why I have never deeply accepted the idea of too-fancy ravioli.

Throughout the years, changing tastes and improving cooking skills, I have learnt to eat almost any kind of food and, of course, different ravioli with different stuffing from the regions of Italy: mushrooms, pumpkin, meats, vegetables. Although I have eaten perfect fish ravioli in the best restaurant, although I have taught and cooked fish ravioli, however any time I see fish ravioli a question mark appears in my head: will I like them?

Although I recognize that this is just my prejudice – and a contradiction too, as I have invented and prepared several kinds of fish ravioli throughout the years with my job -, for me the soft texture and the eggy taste of fresh pasta remains necessarily bond to the taste of my grandmother’s filling, and I do not find the delicacy of fish flesh proper for ravioli.

One day another question mark appeared in my head: what if I would invent fish ravioli without pasta?

So, here they are!

The “Maccu” is a southern Italian dish made with fava beans, as well as the sword fish is traditionally fished in the Sicilian waters. The two strong tastes match perfectly, making this dish a “new meeting of typical southern products”.

Last Saturday, February 18^th, I asked to my students of the program Cucina di Base to speed up with the recipes planned for that day because I had the surprise for them. The surprise was to cook an extra dish, the Ravioli of Fish.

We all participated to the good result… making a few variations.

Instead of swordfish we used monkfish and, instead of dried broad beans, we used fresh broad beans, the first fruits of spring..

MACCU AND RAVIOLI OF MONK FISH

Ingredients for the maccu:

500 gr ( 1,1 Lb) fresh fava brans

1 small onion

1 small bunch fresh fennel leaves

1/2 teaspoon salt

Ingredients for “ravioli”:

600 gr (20 oz) fresh monk fish

1 spoon fennel seeds

1 big leek

1 small bunch fresh parsley

1 garlic clove

salt

30 gr extra virgin olive oil

1 egg white

Ingredients for garnish:

1 orange zest

extra virgin olive oil

Chop the onion finely.

Shell the fresh beans. Sautè the onion in the extra olive oil gently, then add the fresh fava beans and cover with cold water. Season with salt. Cook on low heat for 10 minutes.

Mince the fennel leaves and add into the Maccu.

Blend the mixture with a mixer, then pass it through a chinois. Add enough hot water to get a nice running texture. Pour the sauce in a large skillet.

Slice the fish very thin. Pound each slice carefully. Keep in the refrigerator.

Chop the leek, the fennel seeds, the garlic, the parsley. Sweat in olive oil with salt. Then blend the mixture and drain off the liquid. Add the gg white. Put a teaspoon filling in the middle of each fish slice and close .

Blanch the orange zest, cut in nice strips or in spirals, in boiling water.

Serve the Maccu with the fish ravioli, the orange zest and a drizzle of olive oil.