July 2nd was the fifth anniversary of my dad’s death, and I couldn’t concentrate on work. So I decided to cook, and I wanted to create a dish that I could enjoy that night and remember my dad by – an incredible man and father who was so much fun and so life-loving.
One of PB’s favourite things to do (when he wasn’t in his vegetable patch digging up something delicious) was to spread the kitchen table with newspaper and set to work on dressing a crab. With a large gin and tonic, or glass of dry white wine to keep him company, he’d set to work mining for crab meat, using all manner of complicated kit (well it looked complicated to my child’s eyes) to extract every last flake and silky scoop of crabby goodness. He’d let me watch him, and occasionally let me have a go at aiding the extraction, and then we’d feast on the results, with some lovely French baguettes and mum’s best, perfectly dressed green salad.
I wanted to create a dish which nodded to this love he had for the sweet crustaceans, to eat with a bottle of Perrier Jouet that I’d been saving for a very special occasion. I decided on ravioli, because I feel like making pasta is quite a careful and loving process, and I wanted to put some real energy into whatever I made (catharsis is always good at times like these), plus I had recently been to Bologna and seen pasta made the proper way. The filling I made up – it’s just a combination of shallots sautéed with butter and saffron and crab meat with soft cheese and a squeeze of lemon – at once simple and luxurious. I think my dad would have loved it (though maybe not the parmesan on top – he had a funny story about parmesan, but that’s for another time). Here’s the recipe:
For the pasta
200g plain flour
2 large eggs
Pinch of turmeric
Pinch of salt
For the filling
1 dressed crab
Two table spoons of soft cheese (pref ricotta)
Lemon zest
2 tsps lemon juice
Three shallots, finely chopped
Saffron, to taste
A few fennel seeds
Salt, pepper
Pinch of cayenne
Knob of butter
Parmesan
Method
Start by making the pasta. Clean a work surface and dust with flour. Measure out 200g and put in a mound on the surface, making a well big and deep enough for two large eggs. Whisk up the eggs, then pour into the well, working in the flour bit by bit to make a dough. Knead it until it’s smooth and dough-like, adding more flour if it gets sticky, but not enough to make it too crumbly, roll into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and rest for 15 minutes. In the meantime, you can get cracking on the filling. Finely chop your shallots, grate some lemon zest and melt some butter in a frying pan. Add in the shallots, salt and pepper, saffron, fennel seeds, lemon zest and a dash of lemon juice and fry gently, until the shallots soften. Put the crab meat (I used white and brown, but you may prefer just the white stuff), soft cheese and lemon juice into a mixing bowl and add in the shallots, once cooled. Stir it into a smooth, creamy paste.
Roll out your pasta and put it through the pasta machine, making the space between the rollers thinner as you go, until it’s a light, thin sheet. Use a pasta cutter to cut out two, equal sized squares, and place a little mound of filling on one of them. Lay the other on top, press with your fingers around the edges and use a small round mould (I used the plastic top off a spice jar) to press the filling into a more defined circle. Use a fork to go around the edges. Repeat as desired.
Cook in boiling, salty water for four minutes (or three for al dente) and then transfer to a pan with some melted butter and a squeeze of lemon. Serve with a sprinkling of parmesan.