Unchained Movie Night (#113)

 

Our April movie this year was Ghost. This supernatural romance film proved to be an interesting challenge. I couldn't find any food scenes or references while researching for this film. I did find a scene that was filmed at an Italian restaurant, but there was no food in that scene. For this reason, I had to get a little creative with the food. I decided to make ghost-like Italian inspired food for dinner. For dessert, I made a chocolate "pottery" dish inspired by the famous pottery wheel scene.

No, I did not make the tamales pictured above. That was a pic I found while looking for food in the movie Ghost and it made me laugh.

Ghost Ravioli

So the concept behind this dish was to make an Italian inspired dish that is ghostly in appearance. I decided on transparent ravioli with a creamy white filling and a translucent broth. To do this, I used rice paper and infused some Asian cooking techniques with classic Italian flavors.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 8oz can mushrooms (drained)
• 2 cups marscapone cheese
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• lemon juice
• salt
• garlic powder
• rice paper wrappers
• 12 cups chicken broth

Directions:

1. Start by melting 1 tbsp of butter in a frying pan.
2. Saute your mushrooms in the butter. Add some salt and garlic for flavor.
3. Once cooked, remove from heat and allow to cool and dry at room temperature.
4. Combine marscapone, ricotta, and parmesan in a blender or food processor along with the mushrooms and two tsp of lemon juice.
5. Blend until creamy and fluffy. This might take a little while as it will start off grainy or clumpy.
6. Once well blended, give it a taste and add additional salt and/or garlic as necessary. Then blend it some more to mix the seasoning throughout.
7. Once the flavor is how you like it, transfer the mixture to a large ziploc bag and refrigerate it overnight.
8. Now, pour chicken broth in a large pot.
9. Bring to simmer and season with garlic powder and salt. Finish with a splash of lemon juice for freshness. You can add some herbs if you'd like.
10. Once those flavors seem balanced and well combined, we will clarify the broth by slowly running it through coffee filters. Ladle one scoop of broth at time into a coffee filter above a large, empty, sealable container. This process removes fats and oils, as well as any herbs or grains that aren't dissolved. This step can feel painstakingly slow and it may require multiple filters. It does make for a beautiful, smooth broth though.
    
    
    
11. Once all your broth has been clarified and put in a sealable container, refrigerate overnight.
12. The next morning, take your cheese and mushroom filling out of the fridge, cut a corner off the ziploc to turn it into a piping bag, and let it set at room temperature for a little bit while you prepare an area for wrapping rice paper. You will need a plate that you can fill with water and a clean, dry surface such as a cutting board where you can do your wrapping.
13. The rice paper wrappers that I had were for spring rolls. Raviolis are significantly smaller, so before you begin, cut your rice paper in half. This will still be more than you need, so you could possibly cut them even smaller if you have good wrapping skills.
14. Submerge one piece of rice paper in the water on your plate and keep it submerged until the wrapper becomes soft and pliable. Too long and it will become fragile. Not long enough, and you won't be able to fold it.
15. Move the wrapper to your folding space. Pipe into the center about a tablespoon of filling and then fold or wrap the paper around it. Make sure that you are not leaving any gaps for filling to fall out when you wrap it. One or two layers is all you need. Trim off any excess rice paper. Over wrapping with multiple layers of rice paper can make it chewy and will also loose the invisible ravioli affect.
16. Once the individual ravioli is wrapped, move it to either something like a tupperware container lined with wax paper, or directly into a serving bowl that you can refrigerate and serve to guests later.
    
    
    
17. Repeat these steps until you are out of filling or wrappers or room to store the raviolis. Anticipate four to five raviolis per serving, but also anticipate that many of your guests will want more than one serving.
18. Store the raviolis in the fridge until dinner. The wrappers will dry and stiffen as they cool. Try to keep the raviolis from touching so the wrappers don't end up sticking together.
19. Twenty minutes before dinner time, take the broth out of the fridge, return it to the large pot and bring to a light simmer.
20. To serve, guests will need a bowl with four or five raw raviolis. They will ladle the steaming hot broth over the raviolis and wait a couple minutes to give the rice paper time to cook and the filling time to warm. While waiting, guests may want to gently stir their bowls to make sure the raviolis are cooking on both sides.
21. Eat warm and enjoy.

I was pretty happy with this dish. Upon developing it, I struggled to figure out how to make the rice paper wrappers work. Boiling or steaming, like you would normally do with ravioli, would have made them fall apart. Then I remembered a technique that I had seen in some Asian cooking where a dish is served with raw ingredients in a bowl and then steaming hot broth is poured over it, literally cooking the ingredients in the bowl. It seemed like this technique would be the only way to ensure the rice paper was cooked through without getting too soggy and sacrificing it's integrity.

Flavor wise, cheese and mushroom combined with garlic and chicken flavors seemed like a pretty natural paring. Rice paper is essentially flavorless and was just there to hold the filling.

I worried that the cheese would make for a heavy dish, but the broth was light enough that it balanced well. Several of us went back for a second bowl.

I will say that if I was to try to make this again, I might not bother filtering the broth. Though it certainly looked nice, I doubt it would be much different if I just used the original broth.

Chocolate Pottery

Let me start by saying "Don't judge a book by it's cover." This dish was far tastier than it looks. The idea for this dessert was based on the pottery scene in the movie. I have seen tons of videos of people molding chocolate like pottery, so I cane up with this idea to make chocolate pottery using some of the simple looking techniques that I had seen.

Turns out that it was a lot less simple than it seemed. I made a lot of mistakes during this learning process, but the end result was still delicious. I will share my recipe and techniques here, along with some of the mistakes that I made along the way.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
• 2 tbsp butter
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla
• melting milk chocolate wafers
• colorful balloons (preferably water balloons)
• spray coconut oil
• unsweetened coco powder

Directions:

1. To make the chocolate filling, use a double boiler technique to melt chocolate chips and butter together. As they melt, stir them together.
2. Once fully melted and combined, remove from heat and into a bowl.
3. When the chocolate is cooler but still liquid, slowly whisk in heavy cream, egg yolks, and vanilla
4. Once every thing is combined, move mixture to fridge for an hour. This is a good time to work on the chocolate bowls.
5. Clean your double boiler set up, and melt the milk chocolates wafers.
6. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
7. Once chocolate is melted, remove from heat.
8. Scoop a tablespoon of warm chocolate onto the parchment paper. This will act as the base of your chocolate bowl.
9. Blow up a balloon, tie it tight, and wash with soap and water.
10. Spray the balloon with coconut oil and dip in melted chocolate to make a bowl shape. It is important that the chocolate is not too hot when you do this or the balloon will pop.
11. Rest the balloon with dipped chocolate onto the dab on the baking sheet and let cool. The two bits of chocolate will mold together as they chill.
    
    
    
12. Repeat this step for each balloon. Plan to make more than you need. There is a chance that you won't be able to use them all.
13. By now, your chocolate filling should be much thicker. Whisk it again to try to make it fluffier. At this point, I moved mine to a ziploc bag so that I could pipe it later. I don't suggest doing that. This creates a thick chocolate substance that when piped begins to look a lot like the poop emoji. Instead, I would suggest covering the bowl in plastic wrap or move to a resealable container.
14. Once your chocolate bowls have fully cooled and hardened, slowly deflate your balloons. I did this by pinching the lip of the balloons and using scissors to cut a small slit in it. You want the balloons to deflate, not pop.
15. Once deflated, gently remove the balloons from the chocolate bowls. Despite oiling them, they may still stick, so be careful.
16. Once the bowls are removed, examine them. I had two that weren't usable because bits of the balloon were still stuck to the inside of the bowl. This is why I suggested making more than you need.
17. Move chocolate bowls into an a covered or airtight container and leave at room temperature until ready to serve.

To serve, scoop some of the chocolate cream filling into each bowl and lightly dust with coco powder. You may be tempted to eat this with a spoon, but I believe that it tastes bests if you pick it up and bite into the bowl and all. The crunchy milk chocolate bowl goes well with the soft chocolate cream and I think they taste better together than separate.

Ovarall,the night was a success. I certainly ran into some difficulties creating these dishes, but everything tasted good and fit the theme.