Bottega - Michael Chiarello [38]
CHEF’S NOTE: Good tomatoes are like gold at Bottega, and we don’t waste a bit of them. When you core the tomatoes, take out as little flesh as possible. Then cut a shallow X in the opposite end of the tomato, and when it goes into the hot water, the skin will curl into four little corners, making it easier to peel.
Chapter 5
Pastas and Risottos
Paste E Risotti
Pasta wants to be simple. The best pastas have a primary flavor and a secondary flavor, like the mind-bending Solo Shrimp Pasta in this chapter. The first flavor is shrimp, the second is salt water; it’s the ocean brought to life in your mouth.
Just because a pasta dish is simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. Often when the flavors are simple, the technique requires some effort. Take our gnocchi. Mostly made of ricotta, these gnocchi are so light they’d float off the plate if they weren’t held down by my grandmother’s velvety, classic “old hen” tomato sauce. There’s a saying in the restaurant business that if a dish’s ingredients cost two dollars, and you’re charging ten dollars, there’d better be at least three dollars’ worth of labor involved. Gnocchi is worth about twenty dollars of labor. Gnocchi this light requires technique—it has to be made repeatedly until your fingers have a muscle memory of how the gnocchi takes shape. Until you have the technique down, you’re in apprentice mode. Make it the same way again and again until the steps are second nature.
The same holds true for risotto: Make a basic risotto until you know when to add more stock and how quickly to stir. When your basic risotto is great and you’re confident in your pasta-making skills, then you can go in new directions. Try black rice risotto, or smoke the flour for your pasta in your grill. But until your technique is sound, don’t mess with the recipe. Follow it faithfully step by step until you’ve got the steps down.
I see pasta-making as similar to Buddhism; it’s not a destination but a journey. To that end, I’m building a pasta kitchen at Bottega to expand the scope of my own journey. Making good pasta is not difficult, and you can easily substitute a good dried pasta for almost any of the fresh ones. When it comes to making filled pastas, you may be able to find fresh sheets of pasta to aid the process, but I also encourage you to try making pasta from scratch. There are few things that bring me as much pleasure as pasta.
Ricotta Gnocchi with Salsa della Nonna
Potato Gnocchi Ravioli with Egg Yolk and Sage Brown Butter
Compressed-Tomato Ravioli with Shrimp and Tomato Water
Garganelli with Rabbit Sugo and Mushrooms
Solo Shrimp Pasta
Zinfandel Spaghettini with Spicy Rapini
Tagliatelle with Bread Crumbs, Mint, and Tomato Carpaccio
Tagliarini with Manila Clams and Calabrese Sausage
Pasta “Bezza” with Robiola and Braised Asparagus Sauce
Butternut Squash and Fontina Risotto with Squab Ragù
Sea Urchin Risotto
Ricotta Gnocchi with Salsa della Nonna
SERVES 6 TO 8 AS A MAIN COURSE; MAKES 72 TO 84 GNOCCHI
This dish is the work of two of my favorite people. Nick Ritchie, Bottega’s chef de cuisine, created these cloudlike gnocchi. The rich traditional sauce is my grandmother’s old recipe. The combination is now a “can’t remove” mainstay of the Bottega menu.
The lightness of this gnocchi is due to Nick’s competitive streak. Nick trained with Carmen Quagliata at Tra Vigne, and the whole “who’s got the lightest gnocchi” battle has gone on between Nick and Carmen for years.
These gnocchi have just four ingredients: ricotta, flour, egg yolks, and salt. Use a very good ricotta, such as Bellwether Farms’ sheep’s milk ricotta. This gnocchi needs a 48-hour lead time because you’ll let the ricotta drain overnight the day before you make the gnocchi and then you’ll freeze the gnocchi for 24 hours before cooking. Drain the ricotta by lining a colander with cheesecloth and setting it in the sink. My mom used to make a little