This week’s Short and Tweet Challenge was a dream recipe for me. That’s because it gave me the chance to use so much home produced or foraged ingredients.
The recipe was for Dan’s Spinach and Ricotta Pasties. A gorgeous ricotta/mushroom/spinach/garlic/chilli/oregano filling is encased in a tomato & cheese dough.
I changed the dough recipe slightly by using all wholemeal spelt flour. This was to intensify the colour and because I love the nutty/wholemeal taste of spelt. The dough was very easy to handle and Dan’s quick 10 second kneads make light work of it.
I had great fun with the filling. I was able to use my own dried chillies and oregano both preserved from the 2011 harvest. Instead of ricotta I used brocciu I made from goat’s milk that I first used in this chestnut ravioli. Instead of the spinach, I used foraged nettles that I’d frozen from last year.
In addition to those ingredients, I added 75g of toasted and chopped hazelnuts for taste & to give some crunch to the filling. Finally, I thought the mix could do with a little lift and so added the finely grated rind of an unwaxed lemon.
I was delighted with the combination of flavours. The pastry was thin and crisp and with a lovely cheesy edge from the parmesan. The filling had complex flavours, which blended together beautifully. The nuts and lemon really lifted the filling from good to excellent.
The pasties are incredibly filling. This may be partly because I used a wholemeal flour for the dough. I think you could easily make these pasties into smaller buffet size ones and make double the number of pasties. This will be a firm favourite in our house from now on.
All I needed to serve with it was some home-made (and home canned) baked beans. Make these, they are delicious.
Comments
3 responses to “Nettle & brocciu pasties”
Bravo Carl! You successfully made me hungry again, although I just had a huge bowl of Japanese noodles with Kimchi dumplings. I read your post and my mouth is watering! 🙂
Very nice!!
Even ‘knowing’ you on Twitter as I do, I’m taken aback by the extraordinary use of your own ingredients here and I’m beyond impressed by the whey cheese.
Agreed that the pasties can stand reducing in size and still be a hearty meal or very good substantial snack.
I’ve borrowed a photograph for the #shortandtweet 13 compilation.
EM
That’s very kind of you indeed. It’s part of the trade off of money for time. We get to spend the time harvesting/preserving/making the nice stuff to eat. The brocciu is dead simple to do really. I used some to make a brie-like cheese the other day. It was fab, but I still have to get the process properly sorted.
The compliation is a tour de force, you did a great job 🙂