Something's cooking

Finally it was time for another evening with my "cooking pals". This time we met at my place, and since I had just come back from Rome, the theme had to be Italian.

KF and I had done some preparations in advance, so when the eager cooks came along, the tiramisu (tiramisoup this time), focaccia and pasta dough were ready.

The plan was to cook together, starting with a ravioli, then making saltimbocca alla Romana as our main course and finishing of with a tiny tiramisu and an espresso.

We started out deciding what kind of filling we wanted in the ravioli and decided to make two different fillings, both with Ricotta cheese as a base. Heelco made a very tasty, slightly sweet filling using roasted walnuts, spinach  honey, sage, parsley,some secret ingredients, salt and pepper, while Claudio made a more traditional filling of bacon, mushrooms and roasted pine nuts. To go with the ravioli, we made fried sage leaves and melted butter. Rune was quit busy with de-boning a chicken for his poached chicken balotine (I will make a post about how to do this later), while I was trying to make sure that everybody had the equipment they needed.

Honey, walnuts, spinach filling in the making

Claudio and Rune are making the ravioli

Ravioli with bacon, mushrooms and pine nuts, with a fried sage leaf on top

For our main course we made Saltimbocca alla Romana, which is one of my favorite Italian dishes. In many ways this is a very easy dish to make and the taste is so lovely. You need a piece of veal (I bought a round steak this time), sage, some nice ham (prosciutto crudo), butter, Marsala wine, salt and pepper.

You need approximately (per person):
125-150 g of veal
1-2 slices of ham
2 sage leaves
In addition you need butter, Marsala wine, salt and pepper.

Prepare the meet by cutting it in approximately 1 cm thick slices. Place the slice between to layers of cling film, and use a rolling pin to flatten the meat. Place 2 leaves of sage on the veal and cover with a layer of ham. Fasten the ham to the meet with wooden sticks. Season with salt and pepper.
Melt the butter in the frying pan and fry the veal on both sides on relatively high temperature. Remove the veal from the pan and de-glaze the pan with 1-2 dl of Marsala, ad a lump of butter. Serve the veal with Marsala sauce and potatoes.

Heelco flattening the veal using cling film and  a rolling pin

Use two sage leaves per fillet

 Ad the ham, fasten with wooden sticks

For dessert I had prepared what was supposed to be a tiramisu, but what ended up being a tiramisoup.

I used my favorite tiramisu recipe, but decided to make only half a portion. Since it is slightly more difficult  to whisk 1 egg compared to 2 eggs, I chose to use two eggs. That was a bad choice. The result was a tiramisu that did not set as normal and did not become as creamy. Note to self: when making desserts, stick to the recipe, when making half a portion use half of the amount of everything.

Our wine expert Zain, was not here, so we decided to stick to Italian wines. Below is our wine list.

Wine list:
Valpolicella Classico, Stefano Accordini, 2010, main grape types are Corvina and Rondinella.
Le Trame, Chianti Classico, 2008, Castelnuovo Berardenga.