Summer sukiyaki
Wagyu beef. Broad bean, pea, mint and ricotta ravioli in a beef consommé with seasonal vegetables and pickled wild mushrooms
Summer’s here, by Jove! … Apparently! It’s hot. Then it’s wet. And it’s always humid. So this recipe delivers a beefy hit without you getting ‘stodged’ out. Delicate ricotta ravioli bursting with fresh, seasonal flavours of broad beans, garden peas, and mint. Seasonal vegetables with sautéed and pickled wild mushrooms, relaxing in a crystal-clear consommé of pure beefiness. Not forgetting the ultra-thin, magnificently marbled slices of Wagyu beef griddled for seconds and finished with sea salt and chive oil. Think French spin on Japanese Sukiyaki. Light, delicious, and probably healthy too.
Ingredients
Feeds 4
500g Tom Hixson Wagyu Sukiyaki slices
BEEF CONSOMMÉ
400g extra lean minced beef, from the shin preferably
4 egg whites
200g carrots
100g leeks
50g celery
2 plum tomatoes
8 black peppercorns
Madeira
1.5L beef stock; I use TRUEfoods
CHIVE OIL
100g of chives
100g of groundnut oil
RAVIOLI
200g 00 flour
2 medium eggs
250g ricotta
70g Parmesan
150g fresh broad beans, podded
75g fresh peas, podded
10g fresh mint leaves
VEGETABLE GARNISH
120g of fresh broad beans, podded
120g of fresh peas, podded
12 top sprigs of mint
2 carrots
PICKLED SHIMEJI MUSHROOMS
50ml sherry vinegar
50g caster sugar
50ml Madeira
80g Shimeji mushrooms
WILD MUSHROOM FRICASSÉ
120g Shiitake mushrooms
120g Oyster mushrooms
1 banana shallot
5g unsalted butter
1tbs finely chopped chives
Method
DAY 1
BEEF CONSOMMÉ
1. Crush the peppercorns and tie into a small piece of muslin cloth. Set aside until needed.
2. Blanch the tomatoes, refresh in iced water. Peel, remove and discard the seeds, dice the flesh.
3. Finely chop the carrot, celery and leek.
4. Blend the egg whites, minced beef, chopped vegetables, 100ml of cold water with 5 ice cubes, and a wee splash of Madeira. It will foam a bit.
5. Transfer to a saucepan and add the cold beef stock. Bring to a simmer over a high heat, stirring continuously with a spatula to stop the egg whites sticking and burning.
6. Once simmering, stop stirring and reduce the heat so that the liquid simmers only very lightly.
7. You’ll notice that coagulated egg white carrying the solids and impurities begins to form on the surface–this is called a raft. As the raft hardens, carefully, and with minimum disruption, create a hole at the centre. Gently pour the removed solids at the side of the hole. This hole acts as a chimney for the clarifying liquid and should be kept open.
8. Every 5 minutes or so, carefully draw some liquid from the hole with a spoon and pour over the raft.
9. After 50 minutes, add the crushed peppercorns in muslin.
10. Simmer for 10 more minutes then remove the pan from the heat. Leave to cool for an hour, two if possible.
11. Use a ladle to extract the liquid from the pan, disturbing the raft as little as possible. Pass the liquid through a damp folded muslin cloth. The resulting comsommé should be crystal clear and without any fat. If there are smears of fat on the surface, these can be removed by dragging a small piece of kitchen roll across the surface.
CHIVE OIL
1. Place the chives and oil in a blender and blitz at full speed until the mixture is vivid green and the blender jug feels warm to the touch. Pass the liquid through dry muslin cloth into a container and place in the freezer overnight.
PASTA
1. Place the 00 flour in a bowl and make a well at the centre. Crack the eggs into the middle.
2. Use a fork to break the yolks and gently whisk the eggs, drawing in a little flour at a time. Continue to combine with the fork.
3. When everything is starting to come together, tip the contents of the bowl onto the work surface. Knead the dough for 8-10 minutes until smooth with a uniform colour. While kneading, it may feel like the dough toughens up. Keep going and it will eventually soften.
4. Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling film and store in the fridge to rest overnight.
DAY 2
CHIVE OIL
1. Remove the chive oil from the freezer. The chive oil and water from the chives will have separated, with the ice on the bottom and the oil on the top. Pass the oil into a container and discard the ice.
RAVIOLI
1. Blanch the podded broad beans in salted water for 2 minutes. Refresh in iced water. Remove the skins and dry on kitchen paper. Blanch the peas for 1 minute, refresh in iced water and dry on kitchen paper.
2. Place the peas, skinned beans, and torn mint leaves in a tall container then pulse it together with a stick-blender. Transfer to a mixing bowl and fold in the ricotta and grated parmesan. Season to taste. Cover with cling film and reserve in the fridge while you roll the pasta.
3. Take a quarter of the dough, keeping the rest well wrapped. Flatten a little and guide it through the widest setting on the pasta machine twice. If the dough is sticky, dust it gently with 00 flour.
4. Move to the next widest setting, and again take the dough through twice.
5. Fold the dough in half from end to end and flatten it slightly. Click back to the widest setting and roll the dough through twice. You should now have a nice rectangle of dough.
6. Click to the next widest setting and roll through twice.
7. Continue to guide the dough through each setting twice. You want a thinner pasta for ravioli, about 1mm thick–you should just be able to see your hand through the pasta.
8. Dust the work surface with 00 flour. Cut the rolled pasta into rough squares, at least 12cm wide.
9. To make a ravioli, drop a tablespoon of the filling into the centre of a pasta square. Lightly brush the pasta around the filling with a little water–just enough to make it tacky.
10. Place a second square of pasta over the top. Lightly press one edge to secure the top square to the bottom, then work your way around the filling to expel all the air and seal the edges. Pressing down with the blunt side of a round cutter will help achieve a neat edge. Cut a circle with the filling at the centre using a fluted 8cm round cutter.
11. Dust a baking tray with coarse semolina and place the ravioli so that they’re not touching. Dust the ravioli with a little more semolina.
12. Continue until either the filling or the pasta is used up.
13. Fill a deep pan with heavily salted water (like the sea) and bring to the boil. Add the ravioli and cook for 3-4 minutes. Refresh in iced water, drain and arrange on a tray lined with J cloth. Leave to air dry then cover with baking parchment and cling film. Reserve in the fridge.
VEGETABLE GARNISH
1. Separately blanch and refresh the podded broad beans and peas for the garnish, as you did for the filling.
2. Peel the carrots and cut into discs about 2mm thick. Blanch in salted water for around 90 seconds. Refresh in iced water.
3. Dry the blanched vegetables on kitchen paper and reserve in the fridge.
4. Pick the small bunch of leaves from the top of 12 springs of mint. Drop into cold water and reserve in the fridge.
PICKLED SHIMEJI MUSHROOMS
1. Clean and trim the mushrooms.
2. Add the vinegar, Madeira and sugar to a pan and bring to the boil over a high heat. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.
3. Pour the hot pickling liquor over the Shimeji mushrooms and leave to pickle for 10-20 minutes.
Slices of Wagyu beef for sukiyaki
SUKIYAKI
1. Get a griddle smoking hot.
2. Cook each slice of sukiyaki beef for a few seconds on each side, just long enough to get some bar marks. Place onto a warm tray and continue to cook all the slices.
WILD MUSHROOM FRICASSÉ
1. Finely dice the shallot.
2. Clean and trim the mushrooms.
3. Remove and discard the stalks from the Shiitake mushrooms. Slice the caps 1cm thick.
4. Heat a frying pan over a high heat.
5. Add the Shiitake slices first and cook for a minute or so. Then add the Oyster mushrooms. Once the mushrooms are starting to colour, turn the heat to medium, add the butter and the diced shallot. Season with salt and pepper. Keep warm.
TO SERVE
1. Warm the dishes.
2. Warm the consommé. Add the vegetable garnish and leave to warm for 30 seconds or so.
3. Bring the pasta water to the boil again and turn off the heat. Drop in the cooked ravioli, 2 per person and place the lid on. Leave to warm through for a minute or so.
4. Toss the cooked beef slices to get them coated with any juices on the tray. Throw the lot back onto the hot griddle for about 10-20 seconds, tossing the beef about with some tongs so it all heats up and gets more colour. Transfer back to the tray, sprinkle liberally with Maldon sea salt flakes and cracked black peppercorns. Toss once more to distribute the seasoning.
5. Stir through the wild mushroom fricassé and finish with chopped chives.
6. In each dish, place 2 ravioli. Add 2 ladles or so of the consomme with the broad beans, peas and carrots. Scatter around some of the wild mushroom fricassé. In the centre of the dish, on top of the ravioli, build up layers of the sukiyaki beef with a good squirt of chive oil. Scatter some pickled Shimeji mushrooms and mint sprigs. Finish with drops of chive oil around the consommé.
Seasonal broad beans, fresh peas and carrot in beef consommé with pickled Shimeji mushrooms
Broad bean, pea, mint, ricotta and parmesan ravioli
Wagyu beef. Broad bean, pea, mint and ricotta ravioli in a beef consommé with seasonal vegetables and pickled wild mushrooms