September 15th, 2009
An Attempt at Batali's "The Babbo Cookbook"
Dish 1: Asparagus and Ricotta Ravioli
Dish 2: Grilled Lamb Chops with Brocoli Rabe Pesto
Total Prep and Cooking Time: 5 hours (probably faster for non-noobs)
Grocery Bill: $327
When it comes to finding great food in NY, I've been pretty lucky. I've researched my way to many a great meal and stumbled upon a great deal more. But when it comes to actually cooking my way to great food, my experience is much more limited. Sure, I've taken cooking classes, made the occasional recipes from cookbooks and magazines, but most of those were extremely simple. I felt it was time to at least try to up my game, and for that first attempt at celebrity chefdom, I picked up the Babbo Cookbook and decided on the asparagus and ricotta ravioli and the grilled lamb chops with brocoli rabe pesto.
I owed some friends a big favor anyway, so I decided to make 3 of them my guinea pigs (er, dinner guests) for this experiment. The plan was to start cooking around 5:30 and eat dinner around 7:30, so that we could meet friends out afterwards.
Here's what actually happened:
I had heard that from-scratch pasta dough is very difficult to make, so I tried to cheat and called around to several specialty grocers asking if anyone had any premade pasta dough. No one did. I wondered how difficult pasta dough could really be and resigned myself to making it from scratch.
With my Babbo Cookbook and friend Danielle in tow, I hit Dean and Deluca around 4:00 thinking I'd find everything there. It isn't a huge place, so I was surprised that it took us almost 2 hours to find all of the required ingredients. Even more surprising was the grocery bill - $327...not including wine (that was an additional $100). Yes, we could have eaten at Babbo for less.
At this point I was already running a half-hour behind schedule, and I hadn't even started cooking, so I hugged Danielle goodbye and rushed to a cab with groceries and wine in hand. The cab darted uptown, and I was unpacking groceries 20 minutes later.
I noticed that I was now about an hour behind, and I hadn't even started. I called a couple of people and told them to show up at 8:00 instead (ignoring the grumbling on the other end of the phone). I grabbed the chef's flour (marked with a "00" for those who want the best pasta dough flour), and then it hit me... I left the cookbook on some shelf at Dean and Deluca back in Soho!
I panicked for about ten minutes, messaged a friend and then, surprisingly, there was some sort of divine intervention. My friend just happened to be having drinks with...who?...the manager of Babbo?...What are the odds? I then received several text messages from my friend informing me that the exceedingly gracious Colum (the saint from Babbo) had a backup cookbook waiting for me at the bar at Babbo. Colum, I owe you. Thank you.
Cut to a half hour later. I’m mixing the flour, eggs and olive oil together to make the dough. Yes, there are only 3 ingredients in this pasta dough. Sounds simple enough, right? ...Wrong. The first problem was actually getting the ingredients to mix properly. It isn’t like mixing cake batter…it isn’t malleable at all. It is very tough to mix. Very thick. And to make matters worse I didn’t have a rolling pin. I decided a beer bottle would have to suffice. I missed the part in the recipe where I was supposed to let the dough stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. That was part of the problem. But after an hour and a half of rolling and kneading, my arms were sore, and it was time to move on to the filling.
Yes, it was now after 8:00. Everyone had arrived. The cheese I had bought to ply them with was only going to hold them so long, and I hadn’t even started the filling. Did I mention there was another dish that I had to prepare in addition to the ravioli? It was at this point that I just said screw it and opened a bottle of wine. I might as well drink my way through this…
Thankfully, the filling went much faster. I had made pesto before, and I knew that was fast, so I tossed the required ingredients into the blender and turned it on. Astonishingly, it tasted almost perfect. A bit more salt and pepper and I was onto the next step.
I quickly boiled the asparagus spears (3 minutes), threw them into an ice bath, cut them up and mixed it with the ricotta, parmigiano-reggiano and mozzarella (my addition). I then added the olive oil, black pepper and salt. I kept thinking to myself, hmmm, it could use a bit more salt…that was a mistake. I then decided to add in a tiny bit of the pesto. I tasted the filling, and I had to give myself props – it tasted fantastic.
I hurriedly sliced up the dough into rough strips, placed the filling on one side and then pressed the ravioli bruti (meaning ugly ravioli) closed with my finger tips. The water was boiling, and so I started gingerly placing them into the water. I was worried that they would all break open and cheese would float everywhere. Astonishingly, they all held. And there, in that giant pot of water, the ravioli sat. And sat. And sat.
Flashback to when I was rolling out the dough: I tried to make it as thin as possible. I kept thinking that it needed to be thinner. So I kneaded and rolled the dough (with that darn beer bottle) for what seemed like an eternity. Unfortunately, it was still very thick.
And that’s why the ravioli cooked for over 40 minutes (yeah, seriously) until it was barely al dente. Well, at least they were done. The recipe didn't say to do this, but I tossed them into a pan of butter (with a bit of the pesto and some cream) to help them finish cooking (the wine made me do it), and after a few more minutes I served them up…yeah, it was after 9:30: two hours late, and I still hadn’t started the second dish.
We’re almost to the end here…
Luckily, I like my lamb pretty rare…which doesn’t take long to cook. I threw those suckers in the skillet (I abandoned the idea of the grill a couple hours earlier). I added some of the butter sauce from the skillet and some pesto from the blender, and we were done.
Yes, I was out of my league. No, it wasn't anything like Babbo (though it did taste very good). Yes, we should have just eaten at the restaurant and saved some money. No, I'm not bitter.
But I was glad it was over...
That's me 5 hours after starting.