Coffee and surroundings

Winter means a lighted fireplace and bare trees with glimmers of landscapes covered with snow. For this season, we chose a dish that smells of wood on fire, of porcini mushrooms dried in mountain areas and kept in big jars. We smoked them with coffee, in order to enhance their taste and smell, so to offer our senses flavours and scents of a Sicilian winter.

Hemp and spinach Tortelli, purple potato mousse, dried porcini mushrooms smoked with coffee.

Ingredients for 4 persons:

For the Tortelli dough:
125g soft wheat flour
35g lupin flour
70g water
3g turmeric powder

For the filling:
400 hemp ricotta or soft tofu
5 g salt
10 extra virgin olive oil

For the spinach cream:
200 g fresh spinach
100 g vegetable broth
Extra virgin olive oil to taste
Salt to taste

For the purple potato mousse:
50g purple potatoes
100g cold-pressed corn oil
50g soymilk
5g lemon juice

For the top dressing:
60g dried porcini mushrooms
Extra virgin olive oil to taste
White wine to taste

Put soft wheat flour, lupin flour and turmeric on a wooden pastry board, mix the ingredients, make a hollow in the centre and add lukewarm water; knead until the dough is smooth and leave to rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Prepare the vegetarian ricotta by whisking it and adding salt and oil. Spread out the dough by obtaining a thin layer, then cut out dough squares; put a knob of the filling in the middle of each square and close the dough by creating tortello forms. Wash the spinach and boil it for about two minutes, drain it and turn it into a cream with the help of a blender, while adding the vegetable broth, salt and oil. Separately, boil the purple potatoes, drain them, peel and mash them and beat them with the whisk while drizzling in all the other ingredients, until you obtain a mousse. Rehydrate the dried mushroom in lukewarm water and then panfry them with a drizzle of olive oil, simmer with white wine until reduced and add salt to it.

Now cook the Tortelli, drain them and stir-fry them with the porcini mushrooms. Use a soup plate and put in the spinach cream, the Tortelli and some sprig of potato mousse. Cover with a small glass dome, turn on the smoker and ass ground coffee and cherry wood.