Caciatelli or Casciatelli molisani. Oven-baked ravioli - a variation of this delicious sweet or savoury dish

This  dish is marvellously versatile, it comes originally from the Abruzzo and Molise regions of south-central Italy. It can be sweet or savoury, picnic or lunch-box, a main dish, a fiddly cheese apéritif dînatoire or a hearty 'pasty' type supper dish. Even the pastry has different ingredients, the one I know of and use is made of equal parts of olive oil and wine. It's also a great accompaniment to fresh salad straight from the garden and you can really experiment with flavours of both the filling and complimentary side dishes.

The caciatelli (made with white wine) above have a filling of sweet potato leaf, which I first sautéed in butter and then added pieces of roasted (foraged) chestnuts. When cooking sweet potato leaves think along the lines of cooking spinach, they only need to be cooked until just soft.

Below is a large pasty version (made with red wine) filled with yellow peppers, oven dried herb tomatoes, and fresh basil. It is accompanied by a fresh green salad straight from the garden, topped with fried ham and a red cabbage dish with apple, raw apple cider vinegar and chestnuts all sautéed in butter.

I also regularly make the traditional Abruzzo - Loreto Aprutino, half-moon shape, filled with cheese, which makes a great appetiser to serve to guests to accompany drinks

Ingredients: for 50 small ravioli or one very large one!

For 500g - 1lb 2oz - 4 cups  of plain white - multi purpose flour

100ml olive oil

100ml wine - if you use Merlot as I did - you get a crazy purple pastry, which cooks to a pleasing rich plummy chestnut colour - see above.

salt and pepper (if required)
egg yolk for brushing pastry.

Oven - preheated to 180ºC or 356ºF

Cooking Time - approximately 20 minutes (You will need to check your ravioli as they cook, I have a wood cooker and the oven has all round heat.

 

Make a well in your flour, salt and pepper and incorporate the wine and oil - I usually mix them together first.

Work the dough with your hands and if required add extra wine and oil, in equal quantities. I don't like to overwork this dough but you can tell easily by feel when it is smooth and elastic and ready to roll.

Roll pastry to a thickness to suit your taste and if you are making one large pasty then roll it in to an elliptical shape. Otherwise make a round, so as to cut the maximum from one rolled out piece. Use a single piece to make the traditional half-moon shape. Remember to cut an even number of pairs to make the round version!

Prepare your filling and leave to cool. Adding the filling when warm will make the pastry soggy and difficult to crisp up. If you have a 'juicy' vegetable, like my pepper mix or sweet potato leaf then drain it with a slotted spoon as you fill the ravioli. The remaining liquid can then be served as an additional sauce. 

Do not overfill the ravioli but leave a rim which can be moistened with cold water and then pressed firmly together. Make a small cut in the top of each caciatelli to let out any steam. Brush the top of each with egg yolk before putting into the oven.

Eat them once cooled with a fresh salad or warm with a hot sauce made from the juice reserved from your filling mix.

Remember by the addition of a little sugar to the paste, you can make this into a sweet dish too. 


Experiment and have fun!  Check around the regional Italian cookery blogs and sites for other versions of this interesting and delicious recipe.

Thanks for dropping by and if you have found this post enjoyable please share and do feel free to comment.

All the best, Sue

Return to 'WHAT'S ON THE MENU' for more Simply Organic Recipes

© 2014 Sue Cross

Seaweedless Sushi - Making your own home-grown wraps from edible, easy-to-grow leaves.

Sushi is an elegant and nutritious dish any time of the year but as a Summer lunch eaten outdoors with produce fresh from the garden, nothing can top it. However, it is always pleasing to me to grow as much of our daily food as possible and so I just came up with this idea from looking at the seaweed alternatives we had growing around us.

Making your own seaweedless sushi doesn't mean you have to go without wrapping the rice, although this in itself can be both aesthetically pleasing as well as highly edible. Here is a very simple light lunch created from balls of Thai rice just placed on nasturtium leaf wraps. I married them with a confits de tomates and a fines herbes omelette.

Just add a little of the filling, a touch of soy sauce and then pinch the leaf up around the rice, for an easy DIY wrap!

For a more elaborate traditional sushi, I wrap the rice in extra large nasturtium leaves. I don't have a rolling mat but just use eco baking paper. I can then cut them into lengths just as I would with nori. You can also use other leafy vegetables such as cabbage, kale or spinach but the younger and more pliable leaves are easier to manage.

Nasturtium  tropaeolum majus - A valuable food and medicinal plant

Nasturtium is a most useful plant to grow in any garden, not just for decoration or wildlife habitat but because the leaves, flowers and seeds are all edible. They will also grow in poor soil, in containers and as they can be found in both bush and climbing varieties, are eminently suitable for urban or limited space, square foot and vertical gardening. They will also grow in poor soil, in containers and as they can be found in both bush and climbing varieties, are eminently suitable for urban or limited space, aka square foot, gardening. The container-grown climbing nasturtiums, shown left, have been growing here for two years and backed by the stone wall, actually over-wintered and provided us with some welcome additional Winter salad leaves. The plant is perennial but often grown as an annual but it self-seeds freely. These plants are the 'children' of the ones we planted here in late Summer last year and ate in the Winter, all through the Spring and earlier Summer. This photo, taken in Summer this year, shows how the new crop is progressing and unless we have a heavy frost it should keep us going well into next year. All I have done is top dressed with a little home-made compost. The picture of the parent plants, below, was taken in April.

In the past nasturtiums along with sprouted seeds and citrus fruit were used to treat scurvy because of their high vitamin C content, they also contain valuable anti-oxidants. Prized for centuries as a medicinal plant, the nasturtium can be used to treat skin problems, hair loss and has valuable antibiotic qualities.

My particular favourite is 'Jewel of Africa', which is a climber or scrambler with variegated leaves. The flowers come in many different shades and have a spicy taste as do the leaves and make a great addition to a green salad. The seed is pickled to make a cheap but tasty pseudo  caper.

Rice and the Steam Dragon

As for the rice, I cook it in a very ad hoc manner taught to me by a friend who was maniacal about the right way to cook it. Very simply I wash the rice several times in cold water, then cover it with two fingers depth of water. Put it on a high heat, reducing this when it starts to boil to furiously and never open the pan lid, except just to quickly check now and again for when the water has been absorbed - if you open the lid too wide you let out the Steam Dragon. It seems like many dishes, rice is better left alone. Once the water has been absorbed and the rice is very slightly al dente remove the pan lid to allow the remaining water to quickly evaporate, leaving the rice 'dry' and fluffy. If you still have water visible above the rice but the grains have already reached this stage, then pour off the excess water first. If you overcook rice it goes sticky, then it is called 'friendly rice', which I think shows just how forgiving cookery can be!

Bon Appétit!

Thanks for dropping by and hope to see you again. All the best from an old farmhouse in Normandie by the sea, Sue.

Return to 'WHAT'S ON THE MENU' for more Simply Organic Recipes 

© 2014 Sue Cross

Organic Kartoffelpuffer and Home-grown Winter Salad a delicious and inexpensive gluten-free lunch or supper dish.

When I was a child one of our favourite Winter supper dishes was poached egg with potato cakes. Later on when I lived abroad, I discovered a variation on this theme, which has also become a staple, German potato pancakes. Unlike the English version, which are made from mashed potatoes and then baked, kartoffelpuffer are made from grated potatoes and then shallow fried.

For my salad I am using the green leaf vegetables I have growing in the greenhouse; ruby chard, cabbage, oak leaf lettuce and Chinese leaf. I'm only picking them off a leaf at a time and eating them at the 'baby' leaf stage. This has allowed me to continue these plants through from mid Summer to Spring.

The Ingredients

As a general guide you will need to allow one large potato and one small onion and half a beaten egg per person. The salad is dressed with a simple vinaigrette of unpasteurised apple cider vinegar, olive oil and home-grown garlic. I also add anything else on hand, a couple of endive given to me by a fellow organic gardener and a purchased tangerine.

Preparation

Peel and grate the potatoes and onions with a coarse grater.

Using a large sieve held at an angle, over a bowl, squeeze handfuls of the grated vegetables  to express the juice.  The angle allows you to keep the potato mix draining, whilst squeezing further handfuls. Many people use a glass cloth or tea towel to do this but personally I find it less work to do it this way.

Once you have finished, allow the liquid in the bowl to stand until you see the starch separating from it and sinking to the bottom of the bowl. Pour the liquid from the starch. Discard the liquid and add the grated vegetables to the starch in the bowl. 

For this mix, which is enough for two, I use one small bantam egg. My chicks lay eggs in all different sizes, so if the amount is crucial to a recipe, I weigh them.

Season with salt and pepper and incorporate with the egg and grated vegetable. Meanwhile heat a large frying pan with a oil suitable for frying, just a thin layer. 

When the oil is hot enough so it sizzles when you add a test piece of potato, spoon in a tablespoon of the mix and flatten down with the back of the spoon. I like the pancakes very thin, that way they become very crisp and complement the salad really well. Flip the pancakes over, to cook on the other side, when they are golden brown, after approximately 4 minutes of cooking.

Wash any dust from the salad leaves, spin off excess water and add the vinaigrette. There is something so satisfying about being able to provide fresh, green leaves for the table in Winter.

A quick, delicious, organic and gluten-free meal, which can also double as a pudding, when served with apple sauce and sprinkled with a little sugar and cinnamon. At one large potato per person you will get two large pancakes, so enough for a main course and a sweet!

The dish below is a Summer version, with garden vegetables, nasturtium flowers and figs and purchased organic ham.

GARDENING TIP - Last year we had the best garlic harvest ever through following the traditional French way of planting them on the shortest day and harvesting on the longest. I then dried them in the spare bedroom on a wooden clothes dryer, after having lifted them with their stalks still and dried them initially in the greenhouse.

Please feel free to share this recipe and comment or ask questions.

Thanks for dropping by and hope to see you again, Sue.
 
Some ideas for cookware and utensils:

Return to 'WHAT'S ON THE MENU' for more Simply Organic Recipes 

© 2014 Sue Cross