Recipes

Use some semolina flour to dust the pasta

PASTA DORA - ADAM

Fresh pasta of ravioli filled with cream cheese, lemon and pine nuts served with a drizzle of lemon cream sauce

Ingredients
Fresh pasta
Flour for dusting
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Juice from two large lemons
200ml of double cream
75g butter
100g of grated Parmesan
250g Buffalo Ricotta cheese
One third of a nutmeg, freshly grated
Half a small dried chilli, crushed
75g of lightly toasted pine kernels
The peel of one lemon, remove white zest

Serves six

Preparation
Put the Ricotta into a bowl and add the parmesan, chilli, lemon pith and crushed pine nuts and roughly mix together.

Put it aside in the fridge until you make your pasta parcels.

Take a small handful of your fresh pasta dough, warm the rest and put it in the fridge.

Flatten the pasta and pass it through your pasta machine on its widest setting.

Fold the pasta over on itself and feed through the machine again. Repeat twice.

Then feed the pasta through a number of times, each time reducing the width of the pasta rollers so that the pasta sheets become thinner and thinner.

As they get thinner, they will also get longer. If it gets too long to handle cut a piece off and put to one side.

Once you have long strips of pasta, lay on a floured surface. Cut the length of pasta into squares using a pastry cutter.

Put a spoonful of mixture on to each square. Then put another pasta square on top of the one filled with mixture.

Carefully squeeze the top layer of pasta over the bottom layer, getting rid of any air so that the pasta clings tightly to the mixture and the other pasta side.

Use a little water if necessary, although it's generally moist enough to make that unnecessary.

Use some semolina flour to dust the pasta. I kept my first version of this overnight and the mixture soaked through the pasta and it all fell apart.

So I probably wouldn't make it until the day you need it.

To make the sauce, put the butter in a saucepan and gently heat. Add the double cream, grated parmesan and lemon juice.

Put the pasta in a saucepan on a light boil (don't overcrowd the pot). Remove them after a few minutes with a slotted spoon.

Put on a plate and spoon over some sauce. As you serve grate some more lemon peel onto it.

Have a long rest - I'm tired just writing this!

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Remember fresh tuna - not canned!

CARPACCIO OF TUNA - ADAM

Seared slices of tuna served with a salad of fine green and yellow beans tossed in a pink grapefruit dressing

Ingredients
One tail end of a fresh tuna
Peppercorns
Dwarf yellow and green beans
One pink grapefruit
Salad leaves

Preparation
It's an almost raw dish so the fish has to be very fresh and very good.

Roll it in peppercorns and sear in frying pan briefly so only the outside is cooked.

Wrap in cling film very tightly so that it forms a nice round log.

Put into the fridge and leave.

Cut the dwarf yellow and green beans so that they are all the same size.

Blanch the beans in hot water for a minute or two.

Then place in iced water to stop them cooking. Place to one side.

To make the dressing take the juice of a pink grapefruit and mix it with olive oil.

When you are ready to serve - first take a very small pile of curly salad leaves.

Place the dwarf beans on top in a neat row and spoon over a small portion of the grapefruit dressing.

Then with a very sharp knife cut three extremely thick slices of the tuna.

Place the tuna slices slightly overlapping on top of the salad and beans.

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Grill, bake or fry for around 20 minutes

CHARGRILLED CHICKEN - ADRIAN

Served with Adrian's potato, bacon and mushroom gratin and red pepper coulis

Chicken
Four breasts of chicken - marinade them overnight in:
25ml olive oil
Half a lemon, chopped
Quarter teaspoon of paprika
Quarter teaspoon of salt
Pinch of celery salt

Then grill, bake or fry for around 20 minutes.

Gratin
Slice four large potatoes thinly and simmer for 10 minutes in half a litre of double cream seasoned with two teaspoons of salt.

Meanwhile, sauté 250g of mushrooms in butter for five minutes then stir in parsley and salt and pepper.

Snip 150g of crisply grilled bacon into the mushroom mixture and tip the whole lot into the potatoes.

Mix everything up and tip into a baking dish.

Bake at 180c until the potatoes are cooked. This takes at least an hour.

Allow to cool in the fridge overnight. Cut into wedges and reheat in hottish oven for 15 minutes.

Coulis
Skin four red peppers by deep frying, grilling or baking them whole until the skin blackens.

Then put them in a bowl and cover with clingfilm to steam off skins. Pull skins off.

Take out seeds from inside and discard.

Blitz with half a dozen chopped sautéed shallots.

Reduce to required consistency or loosen with some stock.

Serves four

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Cover in melted duck fat

DUCK - ADRIAN

Served with Mlinci - a traditional Croatian pasta

Rub 25g of sea salt and pepper, into four duck legs - marinade them overnight in:
One sliced orange
One teaspoon of fennel seeds
One teaspoon of lemon thyme and rosemary

Then cover in melted duck fat and cook at 100c maximum for two hours.

Cool, and strip meat from the bones.

Take two duck breasts and rub salt into skin.

Brown very briskly each side in a little duck fat then roast in hot oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

For the Mlinci mix 250g of plain flour and half teaspoon of salt with just enough water to make a dough.

Split into four to six pieces and roll each one into a very rough circle as thinly as possible.

Bake at about 120c until thoroughly dried out but not browned. This takes around 20 minutes.

It should look like a papadum.

When cooled break each disc into about six to eight pieces.

Dunk into water just off the boil for about 15 seconds until soft (there should be no sound when you tap the pieces with a fork). Drain.

Quickly toss in a little hot duck fat and mix with the pieces of duck leg.

Shove the cooked breast on top of all that.

Go and get your cholesterol checked.

You don't really have to bother with the palaver with the legs. If you want, just do the Mlinci and the breasts.

Serves two