The third dish I prepared from the 3 Star Chef by Gordon Ramsay: butternut squash velouté with sautéed ceps, parmesan crisps and mushroom and white truffle tortellini.
I chose this simply, because that butternut squash I bought in September was still in my pantry waiting to be cooked. I had many plans with it, but I never realized any of them. Like in the other dish, I couldn't buy all the ingredients: instead the white truffle trimmings I used some truffle paste and the scallops I left out, yeah you guess it, the overfishing problem. It was also a good opportunity to try the vegetable stock, and I must say I was a bit concerned about the star anise in it, but it wasn't strong at all and it gave a nice touch to the velouté. By the way, these were my first tortellini ever and I guess I still have to practice!
The butternut squash velouté is definietly something, that is going to be on my menu plan in the next pumpkin season!
Sundays. When I was a child a usual Sunday's lunch always included a rich soup with loads of vegetables and boiled meat. I remember I always prefered to eat that soup after it was a few days old, I never liked it fresh and I only took one or two spoonful and nobody could convince me to eat more. Not even with the trick saying one for mommy, one for daddy... But when this soup was warmed up the day after I could eat one bowl after the other. Sometimes my mom also prepared a garlic sauce to serve with the boiled meat and the veggies. If I started to smell garlic, I always closed the door and didn't come out for hours. I hated it. Once I got really curious and tried a bit of her sauce and I was thrilled. I wanted more and more of it. The next time she served it, I tried and thought bleee. She said it is the same sauce I loved so much the last time, and I was sure it can't be, it is ugly. I bet it she added a tiny bit too much garlic, that was what bothered me. Lately, when I was cooking a big pot of soup, I remembered that sauce, so I called mom, and asked for the recipe and prepared the next day among the boiled meat, potatoes and vegetables.While preparing it, I lost myself in childhood memories, and I messed the sauce up, because I changed the quantities of the oil and the flour. Though I was wondering, huh that can't be, so much flour and so little oil, but I didn't care much. So I had to start it all over again and at the end it tasted just like at home.
Ingredients: 5 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons flour
2 garlic cloves
4-5 ladle bouillon
salt, pepper
Chop galic very fine with salt. Heat oil and add flour and whisk until well mixed. Add garlic and stew for a minte or two. Pour soup over it and cook it until it has the desired consistency.
Served with boiled meat, potatoes and vegetables out of the soup. If desired sprinkle meat with some fresh horseradish.
There was that portion of veal stock that I saved from freezing and it ended up in my lunch yesterday. I was craving for fresh pasta with fresh mushrooms. I had some Shimeji, some champignons and fresh porcini in my fridge.
So, I prepared a portion of herb patterned pasta and served among a simple, yet rich mushroom sauce. It is not a big deal to make this kind of pasta.
Just roll out the dough as usual with your machine and then when it is rolled at the second thinest stage place washed herbs on it (for example: chervil, parsley, tarragon, basil and sage) and then fold the dough over itself and run it again through the pasta machine. That's it!
Ingredients: 500 g mushrooms
1 onion2 tablespoon butter
250 ml veal stock
2 tablespoon Madeira
50 g creamfresh parsley
salt, pepper
Clean mushrooms and chop. Heat butter and add chopped onion and fry it together with the mushrooms. Add veal stock, Madeira and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in cream and bring it to cook again, stir in chopped parsley, season and serve.
