Italian Sushi Fusion Cooking

Update, made the meal and pictures at the bottom

 My friend Roberta on the right whom I met and knew for a few years back in Austin helped her friend Mary move here from Des Moines this week and they came over to help me make this meal.  And we had home made ice cream for dessert.  Along with Roberta's fave thing I made for back in Austin, dates stuffed with cream cheese, lemon zest and juice with cumin and wrapped in puff pastry.  Perfect accompaniments to the Disarrono ice cream

 Friday Oct 3 2014  Always good to see old friends, and new


Worked out the recipe previously, just now had time to make it for friends

Italian Sushi Fusion

Something fancy to do, this is not for beginners, but then maybe it is as to me it all seems pretty easy, simple and delicious

the Ravioli

Ingredients:

4 sheets nori

1 1/2 cups whole soft wheat flour, ground fresh if possible.  Soft wheat is like cake flour

1 egg

3 tablespoons sake

Whirl the sake, egg and nori in the food processor until smooth.  Add the flour and buzz until a firm ball forms, add a bit more sake if needed.  Using pasta roller, roll into thin sheets, about number 6 on the thickness setting.  Dust with more flour or place between wax paper and set aside to rest. 

Filling:

1 dozen raw quail eggs

4 ounces salmon roe or some other roe

24 half inch long pieces chives

Take a piece of the rolled dough and place onto the ravioli press.  Use the upper press and gently press down to make the indentations into the bottom piece of dough.  If it tears, return to the food processor and pulse to work the dough a little more.  Reroll into new sheet.  When you have the dough set into the press, add a teaspoon of fish roe into each indentation.  Spread the roe around to make hole for the egg yolk.  Crack each quail egg and separate the yolk and place into the indentation.  Add the chives.  Now, beat some of the egg whites and with a pastry brush coat one side of another piece of the rolled out dough.  Press it firmly onto the ravioli maker and using a rolling pin, press firmly to seal and cut out the ravioli squares.   Separate and refrigerate until needed.  Take the remaining dough and run through the cutter head of the pasta roller to make thin pasta.

Sauce:

8 ounce bottle sake, less the stuff used for the dough

2 small baby bok choy  Just the leaves, cut off the stalks and save stalks for other recipe

2 large shallots, peeled then cut into 1/4 inch rings

1 teaspoon minced ginger

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 cup cream

Bring the sake to boil in small saucepan with the honey ginger and garlic.  When reduced by two thirds, add the shallots and cook until softened.  Add the cream and cook until thickened, about 3 minutes or so.  Add the bok choy leaves and allow to steep until wilted.

Tuna Spider Wraps

Take a 4 ounce piece of tuna and coat on all sides with crushed szechuan pepper and a bit of coarse Himalayan sea salt.  Some nori pieces and black sesame seeds add color and a nice appearance.  In a hot pan, film with a bit of peanut oil with a couple drops sesame oil.  Sear the tuna on all sides.  Set aside to rest a moment.  Take 2 eggs and beat well, pour into a ketchup or mustard dispenser squeeze bottle.  In a well seasoned pan filmed with peanut oil, squirt the egg in a criss cross pattern to make a spider web of egg.  Allow to set, then invert and cook the other side.  Remove from pan and repeat with the remaining egg.  Set aside.

Take the baby bok choy and thinly slice.  In the pan you cooked the egg webs in add some more peanut oil and stir fry the bok choy along with some minced ginger.  To make the spider wraps, lay one web onto a cutting board and then slice the tuna into thin slices.  Place three slices overlapping onto the egg, top with some of the bok choy and then fold up the two outside edges and roll the remainder to make small a small packet.  Repeat with remaining tuna and egg webs

To assemble the dish, cook the ravioli in boiling water for two minutes only, then remove and place in cold water.  Cook the leftover pasta strands and drain, toss with several tablespoons of the sake sauce. When the ravioli are cooled, place into the warm sake sauce.  On a plate, place two of the bok choy leaves, then two of the ravioli and a small mound of the pasta.  On that place one or more of the spider web wraps.  Add some of the sauce and serve.

 Egg, sake, nori before whizzing to make the dough

 After the flour is added whizz until the dough is crumbly

 Press together to make a ball and wrap in plastic and rest a half hour

 Roll the dough into thin sheet, press into the ravioli press and add the fish roe, I added a bit of hourseradish, and the quail egg yolk

 More of a side view.  After yolking them all, top with second sheet and press to make the ravioli

 The scrambled egg nests

 Stuffing the dates with the savory cream cheese then pinching the puff paste to make the fantastic little bites of heaven

 I have the bok choy and shallot cooking on the right and searing the tuna on the left

 Here is the finished dish, the ravioli in front, the noodles from the leftover dough sort of under the egg net wrapped seared tuna and the sake sauce was unbelievable.  Yummy

Oh my god, Roberta used my camera to take that picture of me, I thought it was her camera