A few months back I made a big deal out of a magical new pasta that, to the best of my knowledge, is a rare and possibly singular thought I can claim in the cooking realm.
I will now share that recipe as well as the principles involved.
Egg is the primary binder in pasta, but there is more to it than just adding wet, colorful stuff that also makes meatballs and lasagna fluffier and more coherent. The egg white, and particularly the yolk are protein that form a sort of glue to hold the flour together.
The insight I had one day occurred as I was making a forcemeat, or meat conglomeration of various styles. In French cooking, it’s often better you just eat it and not ask any goddamned questions. As quoted from The Great Outdoors starring Dan Ackroyd and the late John Candy, it may well be made of “lips and assholes”.
Don’t worry about all that shit; I’m not a monster. Just keep reading.
For anyone who has ever blitzed meat in a food processor and left it on the counter to dry, it’s patently obvious that protein turns into a glue. This is true of eggs...and all other kinds of meat. Why then, could one not replace the egg yolk with other protein? Well...you can.
Scallops are a particularly tasty substitute—I would rather say culinary delight— that adds a wonderful texture, subtle flavor, and excellent result. My experimentation is limited, but frankly I see no reason why any number of you who are chefs couldn’t figure out a whole bunch of alternatives. The real issue is liquid content. For a scallop, even if it’s been handled like shit, there’s not enough water to equate to an egg yolk. For a short rib braise? Well, I’ve always got a spare evening now and then for explorations into uncharted territory. Yours might just come sooner.
So here is the recipe. I fully hope and expect you will all try this, as well as experiment on your own and let me know what happened. Personally, I think short rib ragu pasta would be an incredible achievement, and one on which I may beat all of you to the punch. In the mean time:
66 g flour
33 g semolina (100 g total from both)
1 large scallop
1 egg white
1 tsp cream, plus more to achieve the desired consistency
A drizzle of olive oil
A pinch—no more than a tsp—of salt
From here it’s basic cooking.
1. Take the scallop, blitz if you can, and then put in a mortar and pestle and bash the living fuck out of it until it’s a paste. If you’re feeling particularly in the mood for seafood, add more and see what happens. This is all new territory.
2. Sift the semolina and flour together into a pile on the counter and make the standard well.
3. Add everything else and combine in the usual fashion by slowly drawing in the well, and then taking a pastry scraper and chopping in the flour when the egg mixture becomes a paste.
3. This is the tricky part. This should be relatively dry pasta. I said relatively. The cream is there to make up for the egg yolk liquid not provided by the scallop, and the olive oil helps to grease the wheels, no pun intended. It needs to be somewhat firm going through the pasta maker to ensure it holds together and has a nice tooth.
4. Combine until it looks like pasta dough, refrigerate for 30 minutes minimum, and run through the pasta maker in the usual fashion. The only addition is that you may have to run it through the first setting a few extra times to make sure it’s all on point.
5. I added some shaved radish peel and black pepper to make it both pretty and a little more flavorful. For the record, radishes and scallops are a beautiful combination, particularly with a caper vinaigrette. I’ll publish that one as an appendix because I love it and also made it up myself. Very easy and absolutely delightful.
6. Boil in the usual fashion, and realize that scallops are somewhat delicate. If you really want that flavor to come through go easy on il condimento and enjoy the pasta itself as the main. Otherwise, it adds a charming note to seafood pasta, or for that matter, any pasta.
Best, and let me know if you come up with something brilliant! From a technical standpoint, it could be possible to use any protein there is!