SubscribeRicotta Balls with Lemon Curd
I’ve been in book production the last two weeks. For the writer, that involves a lot of housekeeping: Inputting editorial changes, correcting notes styles, writing the front and back matter. Rodale’s brilliant art director (and mycophile) Amy King came up with this cover.
Anyway, the book has been eating up a lot of time, so I’m behind on my posts. I’ll try to catch up.
Shortly after putting up the lemon curd I made a dessert with it that is pretty indulgent: stuffed ricotta balls. My parents often served ricotta balls as a dessert, and both adults and kids love them. It’s just ricotta, eggs, sugar and Marsala or brandy, baking powder, and a bit of flour. The batter is dropped into hot oil and the fried balls are garnished with powdered sugar. They are light and delightful. Some chefs serve the ricotta ball with a molten interior. It is very easy to fry the balls too fast, in which case the interior will be undercooked. I wouldn’t intentionally go for this. To me it tastes raw. What you want is a just cooked, soft interior with a delicately crunchy exterior. The way you achieve that is control the heat of your oil, and don’t use too much oil. Halfway up the ball—around 1 inch–is enough.
I’ve stuffed ricotta balls with jam (various types—strawberry was great) and with chocolate pudding (the same that I use in a chocolate meringue pie). The lemon curd is definitely my favorite though. It’s easy. You just need a pastry bag with a narrow metal nozzle that you can insert into the ricotta ball.
This is a dessert you have to do right before service, which is kind of a drag, but if you are doing a special dinner for close friends who might be hanging around in the kitchen with you anyway, then this one is a winner.
A lemon curd-stuffed ricotta ball
Ricotta Balls Stuffed with Lemon Curd
Makes about 12 balls
1/2 lb ricotta (about 1 heaping cup)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 small eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons brandy
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon lemon zest
Pinch of salt
Corn oil or other light vegetable oil for frying
1 half-pint jar canned lemon curd
Powdered sugar for garnish
Combine all of the ingredients except for the oil and lemon curd in a medium sized bowl. Mix them well, cover the bowl, and refrigerate the batter for 1 hour.
The batter is about the consistency of cake batter
Heat 1 inch of corn oil in a large nonstick skillet over a medium-high heat. Test to make sure the oil is hot by dropping a bit of the batter in the oil. If the oil boils violently, turn it down a bit. You want the oil to be very hot, but not so hot that the exterior of the ricotta ball browns immediately. Drop rounded tablespoons of the batter into the hot oil and fry, a few at a time, until golden, about 4 minutes. Ricotta balls brown quickly, but that doesn’t mean they are done inside. Just let them cook 1 minute after they have turned golden brown and they will be dry and fluffy inside. (If the ricotta balls turn dark brown it is okay—they won’t taste burnt.)
Fry the ricotta balls in about 1 inch of oil
Drain the ricotta balls on paper towels.
Spoon the lemon curd into a pastry bag fitted with a metal nozzle with a small opening. I hold the pastry bag in the fridge until ready to serve.
I hold my filled pastry bag in the fridge
Carefully insert the nozzle into the ricotta ball and squeeze in about 1 teaspoon of lemon curd. The ricotta ball will swell slightly in your hand and feel heavy. Don’t over stuff. It may take a couple of tries for you to get this feel for this, but once you do you will be able to whip through the rest of the balls.
pipe the lemon curd into the ricotta ball
Garnish with powdered sugar and serve immediately!
What’s In? Morels! See my posts from early June last year for drying and canning recipes. Last week I had Michael and Jane Wood over for dinner. Michael runs Mykoweb.com out of Northern California, and I quoted him numerous times in my book, Mycophilia. Anyway, I was super excited they were in town—I admire them both very much—and so was inspired to cook a special dinner. I started out with a collection of antipasti: green bean salad with mint and garlic, lobster with potatoes and aioli, roasted radicchio with balsamic vinegar, and an adaptation of the scallops with lobster reduction that I posted a few weeks ago. I took the potatoes out of the recipe and heated up a pint of my home canned morels and added them instead. It worked very well.
Want so many morels you have to put some up? There is still room on the WAM morel-hunting trip in Northern California. http://www.wildaboutmushrooms.net/calendar.htm I highly recommend it! Or join your local mycological club. We went on our first morel walk just the other day. (People found ramps as well. I’ve got a bunch of good ramp recipes on this blog from May 2010 and 2009.)
The New York Mycological Club off to find morels
I didn’t find anything but species of Gyromitra, the false morel, but it is a harbinger of the morel fruiting. Indeed, Elinoar Shavit, a morel expert, said the morels are up when 50% of the dandelion flowers have gone to seed, and when the honeysuckle flower buds are partially open. Look under dying elms, dying apple trees, poplar, and ash.
Scallops and Morel Salad
Serves 4
You can make this dish with fresh morels, or course. Just sauté them until they are soft. You can also use dried morel. Soak the morels in water (or cream, if you want) until tender, then sauté until soft.
12 large dry weight scallops, abductor muscle removed
6 tablespoons lobster reduction sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pint canned morels (about 20 small morels)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 scant tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced parsley
2 cups arugula lettuce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
4 small pieces bruschetta (toasted bread)
For the aioli:
1 medium sized egg yolk
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
4 – 6 tablespoons safflower, corn, or other light oil (not olive oil—it’s too heavy)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Aioli is just mayonnaise with lots of minced garlic in it. Make the aioli first. In a small bowl add the egg yolk, lemon juice, and mustard. Whisk together. While whisking, slowly dribble in the oil. If the mayo does not emulsify right away, stop adding oil and whisk vigorously for a few minutes. The more oil you use, the milder the mayo. You cannot add extra oil (well, maybe a little), or the mayo will break: there are only so many fat molecules in the egg and mustard—the oil adheres to the fat. You will fail at making mayo if you add more oil than the fat can handle. Stir in the minced garlic and salt and pepper to taste.
Place the olive oil and lobster reduction in a sauté pan. You need the olive oil because otherwise the lobster reduction will reduce very quickly into a super thick syrup that can easily burn. Place the pan over a medium heat. As soon as the lobster reduction has started to boil add the scallops. It takes about two minutes on each side for them to cook. My visual is when the scallops begin to crack. Spoon the reduction sauce over scallops as they cook. Remove from heat.
In the meantime, in another small skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over a medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes, until you can smell its perfume. Add the morels and a bit of the water from the jar and heat through. Add the parsley and toss gently.
Toss the arugula with the lemon juice in a bowl.
Assemble the plate. I served this on a platter. First put down the arugula, then the morels, then and the scallops. Spoon a bit of aioli on each piece of bruschetta and place them around the perimeter of the platter.
