Pasta Disaster

So I attempted to make Maggie Beer’s Chestnut, mushroom and mascarpone ravioli. It was all going well, the filling was nice, the pasta was right, the raviolis might have been too big … but it was all fine and I gave myself a pat on the back for a good first attempt. Then disaster struck...

Since I wasn’t going to eat it until later that evening and it had cheese in it, I put it in a bowl and stuck it in the fridge for a few hours. After all I’ve dusted each ravioli to prevent it from sticking.

I started to get a pot of water going and looked at my bowl of ravioli. To my absolute horror the raviolis were all stuck together! After much cursing I managed to unstuck half the bowl and cooked those. Half of the salvaged raviolis had holes in them so the filling was floating all over the water. The remainder in the bowl had amalgamated into one giant ball of ravioli. As they would say on Masterchef “I came to a low point in my cooking career.” err, yes what career? haha.

But there was light at the end of the ravioli tunnel. I’ve managed to turn the ball of ravioli into …fettuccini! I had some filling left over and made it into a sauce, added some chicken and ta da … chestnut, mushroom and mascarpone fettuccini!


LHS: Mushrooms with sage. RHS: Chestnuts in chicken stock with thyme



Going well...



Still going well ...

****Disaster!****


Chestnut, mushroom and mascarpone fettuccini

Chestnut Cake

This cake is made with sweeten chestnut puree. If using unsweeten chestnut puree, use 150g caster sugar instead.

Ingredients
1 jar Bonne Maman chestnut cream (avilable at DJs)
25g butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 eggs, separated
50g caster sugar
25g self-raising flour

1. Preheat a fan forced oven to 180°C. Line a 20cm diameter cake tin with greaseproof paper.

2. Put the chestnut purée into a small pan and warm gently over a very low heat for 5 minutes. Beat in the butter, then add the vanilla essence.

3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff. Set aside. Whisk the yolks until they begin to lighten in colour then gradually add the sugar, whisking until the mixture is thick and white.

4. Fold the chestnut purée mixture into the yolk mixture, then sieve in the self-raising flour and fold in. Finally, fold in the whisked egg whites.

5. Tip the mixture into the tin, smooth the top, and bake for 35-40 minutes until firm and set. Leave to cool completely in the tin. The cake will sink a little.