Smoked Salmon Ravioli

For a competition that we did back in April there was a salmon category.  Salmon was provided and it was anything goes.  Decided to try my hand at smoked salmon ravioli and see how things went. 

Anyways started by smoking the salmon.  Went with a hot smoke.  Brined the salmon in a simple salt and sugar brine, no added flavors for an hour.  Cooked with pear wood for about an hour, starting around 125 degrees and building up to 350.  Tossed it on beside a few racks of ribs we were making for a wee snack! 

 While the salmon was cooking we made some fresh pasta and rolled out a few sheets, it was a very simple semolina and water dough.  Basically just adding water to semolina until it would hold together and then kneading the dough until smooth.

 The salmon coming out of the smoker

 Chopped and deboned, then mixed with an egg as well as some heavy cream and a pile of fresh chives

 Put the rolled out pasta sheet into the mold and added the smoked salmon filling

 And here's our ravioli!

 After a quk boil we sauteed them in butter and a tough of oil, since the coals were so hot

 Now time for the sauce, mushrooms, garlic, and onions cooked down in heavy cream with more chives and a few grape tomatoes to add a little color!

 All finished and ready to be presented topped with a little Italian Flat Leaf Parsley

The dish came ut perfect just as we were after.  We didn't do as well as we hoped, we did get a call, I believe 5th place out of the 30 so still good enough I suppose!  We did do better in Chili, 2nd place!  A good day and good eats for us, even if we didn't win!

Fresh Mozza Pasta

When most think of bbq and grilling they think of meat. Not always the case In this example we are going to make a homemade pasta, with homemade cheese, topped with grilled cherry tomatoes and green onions along with a little basalmic and olive oil. A wicked meal! It can also be a really good and quick meal if you buy fresh mozza and dried pasta from the grocery store, it's still darn good that way....honest! We start by making the cheese, in this case we made mozza. All you need to get this done is Milk (we use 2%) citric acid, liquid rennet, and a little cheese salt. Start by putting a gallon of milk into a pot. Stir in 1.5 teaspoons of citric acid dissolved in 1/2 cup of cool water into the milk at 55 degrees farenheit stirring as you go. Heat it to 90 degrees while stirring , remove from the heat and add 1/4 teaspoon of rennet in 1/4 cup of cool water, cover the pot with a lid and let it sit five minutes. Cut the curd with a knife into a checker board, it will look a little like this, now put it back on the heat to 105 farenheit, remove from the heat and stir for four minutes.

Scoop out the curds with a slotted spoon, pressing to squeeze out the whey

Microwave 3 times the first time for one minute and the next two times for 35 seconds, removing the excess whey and folding the cheese over itself between each microwave session

Add the salt now and knead it till it all comes together and looks like mozza!

Now it's time to cut it up, toss it with a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and the cheese is ready for the dish.

Now on to the vegetable side of this puppy. Take a small package of grape tomatoes and cut them in half.

Now take a bunch of green onions and chop them up

Mix in some extra virgin olive oil and savory with the tomatoes and green onions.

Now toss it on the grill over direct heat until the vegetables are really cooked down, the green onions are really good if they have a good amount of char on them.

Now we make the pasta. For this we just made a semolina and water pasta. No measurements, just take the semolina flour and mix with water only until it comes together (less water than you would think!) and put it through a pasta extruder, we use and atlas.

Boil the pasta up

Mix the pasta with basalmic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil at about a 2 to one ratio with olive oil on the higher end and basalmic on the lower end.

Mix in the tomatoes and green onions Time to add the mozza

Plate it up and enjoy!