Prosciutto-Awesome
I am supremely proud of this dish. I made it up and it came out awesome so if you don’t like it, you have no tastebuds.
Unfortunately, it is pricey, so beware.
Time required: About 45 minutes at absolute max, but that includes the four million hours it takes to cut proper prosciutto into pieces.
Ingredients:
Roughly 1kg of prosciutto – UNSLICED. Your deli attendant will hate you for it and it will take a while to cut, but you need a chunk of it, not slices, as you’re going to cut it up into pieces later. Prosciutto around here (AU) costs approximately $35-$40 a kilo, so I suggest you buy bacon pieces or something similar if you don’t want to spend that much.
3-4 punnets of cherry or grape tomatoes
1 large hunk of GOOD parmesan cheese – none of this mass-produced-plastic crap. I usually go for a piece about 5-6 in length and an inch thick or so.
1 bunch fresh basil
1 bag baby spinach leaves – optional (I don’t actually like them, but the person I first served it to did)
GOOD olive oil
3-4 punnets shiitake mushrooms (also expensive, so feel free to use cheaper, sliced button mushrooms)
Butter
1 tub ricotta cheese – around 350g or however it comes
3 garlic cloves
1 packet Buccatini pasta (thick spaghetti which is “hollow”. Once again, choose your own version of this)
2-3 teaspoons ground/dried sage leaves
2-3 teaspoons ground/dried basil leaves
Method
1. Preheat your oven to a low-med temperature – my fan forced oven is set to around 120 degrees for this.
2. Chop your tasty, tasty prosciutto (/bacon/NotMeat!/spam etc) into 1cm-ish pieces and throw into a bowl. Try not to eat too much of it.
3. Once your prosciutto is chopped and you’ve eaten enough of it, cut your cherry/grape tomatoes in two. Throw half straight into the bowl with the prosciutto and crush the other half on top (i.e. use your nails/fingertips to SQUISH them into the bowl)
4. MIX! GET YER FINGERS DIRTY!
5. Throw this mix into a glass/heatproof oven dish with a lid. My chosen baking implement for this is a large oval shape (around 35 cm long and 10ish deep), because I make this dish with large quantities of ingredients. Drizzle over a happily generous slog of olive oil, cover, and shove into the oven. Set for 20 minutes.
6. While this is going on, slice your mushrooms as finely as you can get them. Heat a generous knob of butter in a pan on medium and throw the mushrooms on top. Add your garlic, nicely minced, to the mushroom.
7. Add more butter.
8. Add more butter again.
9. Once the mushrooms have shrunk a bunch and are nicely browned, take the dish out of the oven and add the mushrooms. Mix it around a little, then add a little more olive oil as well as your sage and basil. I don’t measure these two ingredients, so the 2-3 teaspoons are just guidelines. I probably add more, but I go by smell.
10. Return to the oven for the remaining 10 minutes or so
11. While this is happening, boil some salted water in a large pan and cook your pasta of choice. Drain.
12. Once all this is done, get a large bowl (believe me, you will need a large one) and throw the pasta into it. Carefully pour the prosciutto/mushroom/tomato mix on top, then rip off a generous handful of the fresh basil (as well as the baby spinach if using) and mix. Scoop on a few tablespoons of ricotta and pour all the grated parmesan over and mix again.
13. Eat!
Holy damn. That sounds awesome. If I can rummage up the $900, I’ll consider making this. Sounds delicious. Then again nearly everything seems delicious to me. It’d need to have Tofu for me to knock it back. Or like, capers.
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