Let me preface this. I went to a culinary school when I retired and gave in-home cooking lessons. I tend to try (and like) to teach. When I offer recipes to my friends and family, they all complain that my recipes are too intimidating, so I’m going to give it to you straight (As I can) and at the end, I’ll try to teach. See below for the lesson items (1), (2), (3) …etc.
This recipe has no name. I invented this way before I went to school. It’s Italy meets India. Pistachio nut, basil, cheese and crab ravioli with a curry Sauce. I know. The Foxtrot? It makes 2 portions.
Also note that I never made any notes on this, and I haven’t made it in over a decade. At my age, and the brain my wife washed, this shit may kill you.
Let’s start with Misenplace. French term for “Everything in its place.” Get all your ingredients out and get ready. Knives, pots and pans as well.
Fresh herbs are washed in room temperature water. Spices and root vegatables in cold water.
Ingredients:
2 cups Mirepoux divided, Onions separated 2 bay leaves 6 whole cloves
5 or 6 parsley stems 2 tbs dried parsley 1 tbs curry powder (or more to taste) 2 cloves garlic
12 oz’s dry white wine 2 pounds Alaskan king crab At least 1 gallon water
¾ to 1 cup shelled pistachio nuts ¾ to 1 cup fresh basil divided
¾ to 1 cup Parmesan cheese Salt and pepper to taste. (seasoning)
Never add seasoning until a product is done! Why? Because seasoning your mirepoix before adding liquid and heat will concentrate it. On the other hand, EVERYTHING should be seasoned. Like your pesto. You’ll see.
Step one: For a Mirepoux. (Like mirror without the OR pwah) (1)
Step 2: Boil the Alaskan King Crab legs for 5 to 7 minutes to thaw them. The bigger the legs the longer. Use the biggest pot you have, keep the water line above the legs and reserve the water!
Step 3: For the stock (Fish Fumet foom A – the bones of any creature that lives in a body of water) Drop 3 tbs of canola oil in a large pot, then add 1 cup onions and sauté for 5 minutes. They should be translucent but not browned. Add carrots and celery and sauté for another 5 minutes. Add wine and simmer for 20 minutes to reduce and concentrate and to remove the alcohol taste. Add crab leg shells and submerge them. Make a Sachet. (Sashay) (2) and add it, then cover with a lid cock-eyed, to let the steam out for 40 minutes. Keep the water above the crab legs if it evaporates too much.
See item (3) for an easy conversion method for portioning the meal. If you’re feeding a lot of people, you’ll need to make adjustments. You may even need to make 2 or more pots of fumet.
Step 4: For the sauce. You’ll need a roux. (roo) (4) and the conversion method. You should be able to steal 4 cups of fumet. Or more after the conversion method, again, depending on the number of mouths to feed.
Step 5: For the ravioli filling. Place the pistachio nuts, basil, cheese, egg yolk and meat from the crab into a mixer and (IF need be) slowly add canola oil until you have a VERY thick pesto (5). Oil and egg yolk = mayonnaise. It should be firm enough to hold its shape. Too runny? Add more nuts, basil and cheese in equal proportions.
Step 6: For the ravioli: Most stores sell prefab lasagna sheets. Typically, you’ll get 5 sheets of store-bought pasta, which will be around 5 pieces of ravioli per sheet.
Note: You need to decide how much ravioli each person gets so you may need to get 2 or more packages of prefab lasagna. This recipe should make around 6 raviolis each, for 2 people.
I have various “ice cream” scoop sizes to mold balls of “whatever”, but you can use a heaping tbs as long as you make them as round as possible. Each “ball” should be around an inch in diameter. If you make your own pasta, I’m betting you have a pasta attachment for your Kitchen Aid. Mine has one for ravioli.
Lay out a sheet of pasta and place pesto about 1.5 inches apart in a straight line. Brush a little egg wash (6) around the pesto and place a layer of pasta on top of the pesto and press firmly with your fingers to be sure it’s sealed. Cut into squares with a pizza cutter or ravioli cutter. (Or a knife) Stay as close as possible to the pesto but not so close it won’t stay sealed. You don’t want to eat plain pasta, which is what you’ll get a lot of, from lasagna sheets.
Place ravioli on a cookie sheet and continue until complete. You should have enough of the crab fumet to boil and drop in the ravioli, several at a time, but avoid crowding. They’re done when they float, so crowding will hinder their rise. If you don’t have enough fumet to boil them in, just add water.
Alternatively, boil them in clam juice. Did that once, AWESOME!
Drizzle a ring of sauce in a circle around the plate near the outer edge, stack the ravioli like a pyramid inside the ring, pour a good dose of sauce over the pasta but don’t drown. Put a little flowering of basil chiffonnade (Shiffuhnod) (7), on top of the pasta. THAT’S presentation, right there, boy.
Lesson: (1) For a mirpoux. 2 parts onion, 1 part each, carrots and celery.
How to chop an onion: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lQ-7_kfTAB8
For Celery: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1U_KdtYT0r4
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_acHWI3fGc4 Note: I strip off the strings before chopping the celery. ALSO, Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute of Paris said 2 parts onion 1 part each, carrots and celery.
For Carrots: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xhXyljxfwHw
Note: His principle is okay, his technique is not. I do not cut them vertically. I like the skin on my fingers that came with me when I was born. Yeah, yeah, 7 layers and all that, but I’m funny! I lay down a stalk, cut it to a length of 3 to 4 inches and slice a small edge off one side lengthwise. Lay it on that flat edge, then cut them to thirds. Or more. I never met a carrot that was the same diameter end to end. The most important thing is that they are of similar thickness.
(2) Sachet and why: A sachet (Sashay) is a bag of herbs and spices. While you can use many herbs and spices, there are a few “traditional” options. Lay a couple layers of cheese cloth out on your work surface. Sorry gals, size it not really important. If you can tie the bag closed, you’re golden. Lay a couple dry bay leaves, a half dozen whole cloves, several parsley stems, a few thyme sprigs, 2 garlic cloves and a dozen pepper corns, in the center of a square of a couple layers of cheese cloth and tie it off and you’re good to go. Can’t find fresh thyme and parsley? Use a couple tbs of dried herbs. Doesn’t need to be precise. The flavor will be imparted.
Tie it into a bag with butchers’ twine and leave enough twine to attach to the handle of your cooking pot. Why? Well, if you wanna fish around for a bay leaf in 212 degree liquid…
(3) Converting the size of a recipe:
Example one: You have a recipe with a yield of 8 portions, and you want to make 18 portions.
18 / 8 = 2.25 Your conversion factor is 2.25. If you multiply each ingredient in your recipe by 2.25, you will prepare 18 portions, not 8 from the original recipe.
Example 2: you have a recipe that makes 20 gallons of soup, and you want to make 5 gallons.
5 / 20 = 0.25. Your conversion factor is 0.25. That is, if you multiply each ingredient by 0.25, you will prepare only five gallons.
(4) A roux: Equal parts fat and flour. In school they’ll tell you a roux is 2 tbs fat and 2 tbs flour, for 4 cups of liquid. Then they’ll say it should be the consistency of wet sand. I find the latter to be more accurate. The former is IF you’re not using onions. (Most recipes do) Onions will absorb some of the fat. Your sauteing the onions in the fat. Usually, you’ll have to add more fat. Add fat, if need be, a tsp at a time. Else add flour a half tsp at a time. THAT’s what should be like wet sand, AFTER the onions are done. After your roux is happy, add a couple cups of fumet and turn the heat up to medium. This’ll activate the roux. Whisk. A lot! It should get pretty thick. Add another cup +/- of liquid until you’re happy.
Sounds easy, right? Yeah,… No. I find that if I’m using milk or cream, I want to use butter, but for chicken, fumet’s or beef stocks I use canola oil. Oil and milk don’t get along. I’m you? Try it. Experiment. Crab aint cheap. Onions, flour, oil and water is😊
SIGH What if my sauce is too thin? You have 2 options. The easiest is a slurry of corn starch and water. 2 tbs starch, ¼ cup water. Again, over medium heat, add a little at a time to your sauce and whisk. Use only a little! Like a few drops of starch at a time. If it’s just the wife and I, I’ll use a slurry but note that it’ll be gelatinous.
A better alternative is a Buerre mania. (Beware without the E and mania like mohnyay) Couple tbs soft butter, not melted, and 2 tbs flour and squish it together in your hand. Wear those gloves like when you’re handling NIC:) If you try melted butter like a roux, you WILL have lumps. For presentation, add a tbs butter in the sauce after it’s done for a nice shine. It won’t hurt the consistency.
A “sauce” is a general term for a liquid condiment used to add flavor to food, while “gravy” is a specific type of sauce made primarily from the juices and fat rendered from cooked meat, usually thickened with flour or cornstarch, and often served with roasted meats; essentially, all gravy is a sauce, but not all sauces are gravy.
Incidentally, ever fry something and there’s shit stuck to the bottom of your pan? Hard to clean? They’re called fonds. Like the fonz on Happy days. It has got a good flavor. Add a splash of dry wine to the hot pan and scrape with a wooden spoon, or spatula. That’s called deglazing. Don’t need the fonds, and the pan is hard to clean? Do the same thing.
(5) A pesto is simply a thick basil-based mixture of basil, garlic (traditionally) pine nuts and parmesan cheese. I’m leaving the garlic out as I don’t want the taste of raw garlic in every bite. I like pistachio nuts a LOT better than pine. We add only an egg yolk to bind it together. We need it to be firm enough to hold its shape. Too runny? Add more nuts, basil and cheese. Too thick, add a LITTLE canola oil.
(6) An egg wash: 2 Egg whites and 1 tbs water. You may have to make more depending on the number of people. Baking for example, a pie crust you could use milk or cream to produce a nice brown, shiny crust. Egg and water will help the dough stick together. How to separate egg white from the yolks. 3rd or 4th day of class, the chef says to smack an egg on the cutting board and separate the shells with one hand. Says he’s NEVER had a shell in the egg. Showed us the technique. ROTFLMAO. Huge shell! Talk about egg all over your face!
I crack it over a bowl with a sharp edge and pour the egg into one half of one shell. Then I pour the results into the other half of the shell. Maybe one more time if there’s a lot of egg white.
(7) Chiffonnade: 50% presentation and 50% flavor. FRESH basil! Lay the biggest leaves down on your cutting board curled side up. 5 or 6 leaves, big to small. Roll them up tightly and slice the roll crosswise and very thin. 5 or 6 leaves are good for 2 people. Conversion method… Chiffonnade is a French term meaning “Made from rags”.
Remember, I’m a demented old fart. This took me 2 days to prepare, and it may not be coherent. ANY questions, ask and I’ll be happy to clarify. I LOVE teaching. Don’t get me started on my 16 year old great grand son. Or ask. It’s another story.
