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You may not be familiar with bottarga but as this simple dish by chef Jake Simpson demonstrates it’s the perfect ingredient to keep in your fridge to transform a plate of food. 

Bottarga is the salted and dried roe of either grey mullet (commonly found in Sardinia) or tuna (more often from Sicily). “I much prefer the Sardinian mullet version,” said Simpson.

You can often find it pre-grated. But you should “avoid this like the plague”, he said. “Buy a whole piece and grate it yourself.” 

Simpson describes the taste as “salty, fishy, rich and wonderful”. It is “the perfect store cupboard ingredient, waiting patiently for months at the back of the fridge, just ready to be grated late at night on to warm spaghetti, doused in good olive oil. It’s expensive but you don’t need a lot.” 

In this recipe it serves as “the perfect counterpoint to voluptuous ravioli, stuffed with whole egg yolk”.

Ingredients

For the pasta:

• 125g 00 flour
• 1 whole egg
• 1 egg yolk

For the filling:

• 175g ricotta (sheep’s milk best, but cow’s milk works just fine)
• 50g grated pecorino romano
• Zest of one lemon, finely grated
• 1 tbsp very good olive oil
• Salt & pepper

To assemble:

• 4 eggs, yolk only

For the sauce:

• Juice of one lemon
• 125g butter, diced into small cubes and kept chilled
• Pinch of smoked chilli flakes or Aleppo pepper
• 50g bottarga, finely grated

To serve:

• A few breadcrumbs, fried in olive oil until crisp and golden
• 1 tbsp fennel fronds (picked from the tops of heads of fennel), or a suitable soft herb (chervil, chives or mint all work in their own special ways)

Method

• Mix the pasta ingredients together well, then knead for as long as you can bear – 10 mins is ideal. Let it rest for at least half an hour.
• Whisk all of the filling ingredients together well, and season to taste.
• To assemble, roll the pasta as thin as possible – through a machine if you have one, or with a rolling pin if not. You want it thin enough to be translucent. Stamp out 10cm circles of pasta, and top each with a generous tablespoon of ricotta filling. Make a dimple in the centre, and carefully place an egg yolk into this. Wet the edges with a little water, then top with a second round of pasta. Press firmly to seal.
• For the sauce, place the lemon juice in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil. Set the heat to very low, then add the butter, bit by bit, whisking constantly to emulsify. When all the butter is whisked in, add the chilli flakes and bottarga, and whisk again. Season to taste.
• Then, bring a large pan of well-salted water (10g/lt) to the boil. Add the ravioli and cook at a gentle simmer for two minutes, then drain and add to a pan containing the sauce. Swirl the ravioli in the sauce, then spoon on to plates, and top with the crumbs and fennel tops. Serve with aplomb.

Jake Simpson is head chef at The Rectory in Crudwell, Wiltshire, a Georgian manor house with a stylish but low-key feel and a sprawling English garden. He joined the hotel after a long-time tenure as the team leader of Bocca di Lupo, Soho. Formerly a Jeremy Lee alumni at both the Blueprint Café, Tower Bridge and Quo Vadis, Soho, Jake uses primary seasonal flavours.

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