Rolling With Jamie Oliver

"Jamie's Italy" inspires me to get ambitious with a squash and spinach rotolo.

I can’t tell you what a relief it was to pull “Jamie’s Italy” off the shelf and find a bunch of beautifully illustrated, entertainingly written recipes that I want to try.

I had just finished up three quirky self-published cookbooks from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s that were entertaining enough in a kitschy way, but not something I plan to return to. I was excited to explore the next book, from Mark Bittman:

That it was based on a TV series maybe should have been a warning. I trusted that Bittman couldn’t/wouldn’t put out a bad cookbook, but I was wrong. Here are some examples of the photography from the book:

The publishers used shaky, yellowed pixelated screen shots from the video footage. Maybe someone told the book designer, “These are just placeholders. We’ll put in the real photos later.” Imagine the designer’s chagrin when they didn’t.

I read a few recipes, and considered making something, but I was just feeling offended every time I turned the page. So I put it out in the free library and moved on.

In comparison, “Jaimie’s Italy” is a work of art. Jamie Oliver is a fun writer, and his passionate and playful nature comes through in this cookbook, and the photos are stunning, capturing not just the dishes, but a way of life.

Call me a glutton for punishment, but the Butternut Squash and Spinach Rotolo recipe spoke to me the loudest, even though Jamie himself suggests you practice making it at least once for yourself before you plan to make it for others.

That’s OK. I’m going to give it a go anyway. Even if it’s not esthetically perfect, I can tell by the ingredients that it will taste good. And I’ll cut a couple of operational corners because I don’t have a passel of sous-chefs hanging around (though the Sergeant is always willing to chop vegetables).

Rotolo di Zucca e Ricotta Recipe

1. Prepare 1 pound egg pasta dough. Jamie’s recipe calls for 4 cups 00 flour and 6 eggs, which yields twice as much as you likely need for this recipe, unless you have a really long pot. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate until you’re ready to roll it out.

2. Heat your oven to 425°F

3. Peel, seed and cut up 1 small butternut squash in chunks and put them in a bowl with a splash of oil. (The squash is already peeled in the photo above because I forgot to take the ingredients photo first. D’oh.)

4. In a mortar, grind up 1 teaspoon coriander seeds, 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, and ½ dried red chili. (I used some of the Sergeant’s paprika instead — it’s got some heat to it) Toss this mixture with the squash, then spread the pieces in a roasting pan or casserole dish with a tight-fitting lid.

5. Bake the squash for 30 minutes, then uncover it, give it a stir, and cook for another 20-30 minutes uncovered, until the squash is golden and cooked through.

6. (If your squash has lots of good-sized seeds, toss them separately with a little oil, sprinkle them with seasonings of your choice, and spread them on parchment paper on a baking sheet and pop them in the oven with the squash. Stir them after 5 minutes, then check them at 10 — they’ll probably be done. I sprinkled some on the finished rotolo, and snacked on the rest. I’ve been a pepita kick lately anyway.)

7. While the squash cooks, heat a large sauté pan, add a splash of olive oil, then a handful of fresh marjoram or oregano leaves and 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced.

8. After 20 seconds or so, throw in 1¾ lb. spinach, washed, or 1 package of frozen chopped spinach that has been thawed and squeezed.

9. Stir the spinach around a bit until it reduces in volume (if using fresh). After a minute, add 2-3 tablespoons butter and some grated nutmeg. (The recipe specifies ⅓ of a nutmeg, which seems like a lot. I grated enough for 1 teaspoon.)

10. Keep cooking until most of the spinach’s moisture has evaporated. Season with salt and pepper and set aside to cool.

11. Roll out your pasta dough by hand or with a machine.

    1. The dough should be “the thickness of a beer mat and the size of a kitchen towel,” which is unhelpful unless you have a collection of beer mats handy. Consensus is about 2mm among these mostly European beer mats.

       

    2. The size of the dishtowel is less obvious. Mine are all over the map. Instead, I went with the size of my available cooking vessel, a heavy cast aluminum roaster. It’s 15 inches or so on the diagonal:

    3. If you have a giant rolling pin, vast work surface and a lot confidence, go ahead and roll that dough out by hand. If you have a machine, crank the dough through as if you were making lasagna noodles. (I have to use my old laptop stand and brace it with my feet, because my counter doesn’t have enough overhang to attach it. Hey, it works for me.)

    

12. Lay your pasta sheet or sheets on top of a clean, white dishtowel to make a rectangle. I rolled a sheet long enough to cut in thirds, then “glued” them together with a little water brushed on the edges.

13. Speaking of water, now is a good time to start boiling salted water in your big pot.

14. Spoon the squash along the bottom edge of the pasta closest to you.

15. Mix the spinach with about 5 ounces ricotta (or more, if you really like ricotta) and spread that on the rest of the rotolo, leaving about 2 inches bare at the top.

16. Sprinkle freshly grated parmesan over the spinach.

    

17. Carefully roll the whole thing up like a jelly roll, using the towel to help you gently lift and roll.

18. Wrap the towel around the rotolo and tie it with kitchen twine at the ends and in the middle, leaving a long string at one end to help pull it out of the pot.

    

19. When the water is boiling in the pot, carefully place the rotolo in the water, and weigh it down so it stays submerged.

    

20. Simmer the rotolo for about 30 minutes.

21. While the rotolo is simmering, Jamie tells you to clarify 1 stick of butter by melting it gently in a saucepan in a 170°F oven for 15 minutes.
    This implies that you have access to more than one oven. I don’t, and mine was too hot from baking the squash. Instead, I set the pan on the back of the warm stove for a bit, then spooned the clarified butter out carefully, leaving the white solids behind.

22. Heat the clarified butter to sizzling and fry 20 whole sage leaves until crispy. Put them on a paper towel to drain.

23. When the rotolo is ready, pull it from the water, cut the strings and carefully unroll it from the towel. It won’t look like much.

But cut it into inch-thick slices and serve two or three pieces on each plate, drizzling a little sage butter over them, sprinkling pepitas (if you made them) and sage leaves, and grating fresh parmesan over all of it.

Yeah, it’s kind of a showstopper. And delicious! The pasta was a little tougher than I would have liked; I probably overworked it, or didn’t roll it thin enough, or both.

Will I make this again? I think so, but I’ll probably do so over a couple of days. Certainly the squash and spinach can be made ahead of time quite easily, and the clarified butter (or use ghee).

There’s an alternative version, also from Jamie Oliver, that shows him coming to his senses a little about the feasibility of making this recipe on a weeknight. Maybe I’ll try this version the next time:

In any case, I’m glad I pulled out my pasta maker; I’m inspired to make some more dishes with it now.

Thanks also to Stillwater Kitchen, who happened to make this same dish two months ago, albeit with a different filling. It was good to see how the filling and rolling went.