But it isn’t really penance if you enjoy it, right?
The simplest of dinners was in order after the weekend’s feast: Steamed asparagus with browned butter-spring garlic-lemon sauce, one egg over easy, and a sprinkling of sea salt, parm/reg and black pepper.
That thing I had against leftovers? Not a problem anymore. No sirree, not after last night, at least.
I had quite a bit of filling left after adapting the Plump Pea Dumplings recipe from 101 Cookbooks, so I pondered for a while what exactly to do with it. Then I remembered another recipe I’d bookmarked from Delicious Days (whose photography just kills me) for Egg Yolk Ravioli and dinner was taken care of!
So I mixed together a double recipe of pasta in my food processor (if it’s good enough for Lidia, it’s good enough for me!) and kneaded it until it was pliable, then formed it into a ball before setting it in the fridge to chill for 15 minutes.
Making ravioli from scratch meant digging out the pasta maker we received as a wedding gift and only used once. Not exactly sure why it isn’t in the rotation more often because it turned out nice, thin sheets of ravioli dough.
First, I quartered the dough and ran half of it through the machine to make sure the rollers were completely clear of metal shavings before I got down to it.
And then slowly I rolled, step by step, inch by inch.
Oh yeah, that’s why I don’t use this more often! My arm nearly fell off.
But, as I said, it turned out nice, thin sheets, which I then topped with about a tablespoon of leftover dumpling filling per egg yolk I planned to use. This left me with four frankly not-very-attractive balls of green stuff, into which I formed little craters so the egg yolks wouldn’t escape.
See? Unattractive, but just you wait.
Then I used the egg separators right at the end of my arms to separate the yolks from the whites. The whites went into a bowl and the yolks just sat very perkily atop the green mounds.
Well, ok, not ALL of them were so perky…
That guy at left? He was trouble.
After that balancing act was done, I brushed the dough all around the fillings with egg white and set the other strip of dough on top, carefully sealing each ravioli and doing my best to squeeze out all of the air. Not sure I succeeded on that count, but none burst in the water, which is all I need to consider myself a culinary genius. Set the bar low, kids.
I’m no Martha, but I do love a scalloped edge.
So these babies boiled for 2-3 minutes while I scurried frantically around the kitchen, warming the plates, melting the truffle butter (yeah, you heard me), and getting out the microplane grater so I could top each eggy pillow with cheese before it had a chance to cool off.
I’d say it all turned out well, wouldn’t you?
With lots of time to cook on weekends, I like to skip the healthy yogurt of my weekday mornings and indulge a little. During summer, my go-to brunch moves from bread pudding to more seasonal fare — roasted tomatoes and asparagus with soft scrambled eggs. No one respects the egg more than a French chef, so I pulled my old, battered copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking from the bookshelf to make sure I’d get them right. Ordinarily, I’d just get to cooking without consulting a cookbook, but if you’ve ever had French-style scrambled eggs, you know how important it is to cook them just so — the end result should be soft, creamy, curds custardy in texture and positively rich with butter.
Turns out, it’s really quite a simple recipe. You start with a cold pan and cook over very low heat while stirring constantly, which is basically the exact opposite of how I usually make scrambled eggs. But the extra effort is definitely worth it.
As Julia would say, “Bon appetit!”
recipe after the jump
Sunday brunch has long been my favorite meal of the week. It’s a huge deal in New Orleans, and I’d always indulge whenever I found myself there after a long night of doing what college kids do on Saturday night. (No, never Bourbon Street — we had some standards.) Once I moved to the working world after grad school, my cravings went unsatisfied; I was the hardest-working woman in St. Louis on Sundays, you see. After my gig as minister of music at a local church, I went straight to my day job for a double shift of putting the catalog to bed for the week. Saturday brunches just weren’t the same, somehow, so I sucked it up until I moved to NY and got to enjoy the boozy brunches offered all over the city.
Sadly, there aren’t any places in Ringwood for a proper brunch, so I’m left to my own devices when the mood strikes. And strike it did this very morning. So, inspired by a Mario Batali recipe, I decided to make use of lovely hen of the woods mushrooms from Trader Joe’s and tomatoes from my friend Mew’s garden (lucky duck, her yard gets plenty of sunshine and no deer at all).
I didn’t want the typical scrambled/fried/poached egg and bacon axis — though a side of bacon was a no-brainer — and remembered a baked egg recipe from Orangette I’d been meaning to try. (Btw, she’s getting married today — let’s all send good thoughts her way!) Apart from my ramekins being too small (which later spelled disaster), it seemed like an easy enough recipe to attempt in my morning-addled state.
I washed the mixing bowl thoroughly to remove any speck of grease and set the whites to whipping. As the stand mixer was doing its thing, I grated the cheese and greased the ramekins. It all went smoothly, though I made a couple of extras just in case my previous bad luck with meringues/soufflés continued.
While a couple of yolks went Frank Lee Morris on me, the other two remained where they should’ve and put a fine spin on the typical eggy brunch dish. The yolks were blanketed with creme fraiche and nestled into delicate clouds of cheese with the faintest crunch on the edges. Yummmmmm…
Despite the rich cream, this was the most ephemeral of brunch dishes and one I’ll definitely try again, only next time with larger ramekins.
recipes after the jump
