These squid ink tortellini are filled with a light fish mousse, and served with a creamy vin jaune velouté. The mousse can be made with a variety of different fish - both lemon sole and plaice work well.
For the mousse, first fillet the plaice, removing and discarding the skin (or ask your fishmonger to do this for you). Reserve the head and bones for your sauce
In a food processor, blend the fish fillets and slowly add the chilled double cream to form a smooth mousse. Season with salt and cayenne pepper
Carefully pick the white crab meat three times, removing any shell you find
Fold the picked crab meat through the mousse. Store in the fridge until needed
Bring the ingredients together using the mixer then finish the dough by kneading together on a work top
Wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge for 1 hour, or overnight
For the apple puree, pace the diced apple into a pan along with the sugar, water and lemon juice. Heat gently over your hob on a medium heat and cook for 20 minutes with a lid until the apples have broken down, stirring regularly to avoid any colouring
When cooked, add the agar agar and bring back to a boil
Let cool slightly, then carefully blend to a smooth puree
Pour out the apple puree onto a tray and leave to set in the fridge
Once set, blend once more to a puree and store in the fridge
Next, make the vin jaune sauce. Cut up your reserved fish bones into smaller pieces
Add the olive oil to a heavy pan, and sweat the shallot, button mushrooms, garlic, bay leaves, fennel seeds and star anise until softened but not coloured. Add a little water if necessary
Add the white wine vinegar to the pan and cook out for 1 minute before adding the cut up fish bones, fish head and white wine
Add water, just enough to cover the bones (around 1 litre) and leave to simmer for 20 minutes, covered
Pass the stock through a sieve into a separate pan. Add the cream, butter and lemon juice to the strained fish stock. Season with salt
Finish the sauce by adding a few glugs of vin jaune to taste, or a dry sherry if vin jaune is unavailable
For the dill oil, place the dill and oil into a jug blender with a lid fitted loosely to allow any steam to escape
Blend the dill and oil on high speed for several minutes. The herb oil might warm up slightly and produce some steam and the dill should begin to split from the oil
Set a piece of muslin cloth or a fine tea towel over a sieve and pass the mixture, collecting the oil in a receptacle below. Discard the pulp and store the oil in the fridge until needed
Next, remove the pasta dough from the fridge and roll out using a pasta machine, slowly working down the settings from thickest downwards, until it is around 1mm thick. This should be about a third of the way down a pasta machine's settings - we roll to setting 7 of 10. Use a little white flour when needed to stop the dough sticking
Cut out circles from the sheet using a 10cm ring cutter
Place a spoonful of your plaice and crab mousse into the centre of each pasta disk, leaving an edge
Lightly wet the pasta surrounding the mousse with a damp pastry brush and fold the pasta over the mousse encasing it in a semi circle
Press the pasta together surrounding the mousse to form a tight compartment. Use a smaller disk cutter to cut away any excess pasta if necessary
Pull the two edges of the semi circle together to meet at the back and join, pinching together and shaping the tortellini
Once all your tortellini are shaped, and you're ready to serve, bring a pan of heavily salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta for 4 minutes
Add the sea herbs to the water and blanch for a couple minutes, or until tender
Dress the sea herbs and diced apple in some dill oil, separately
Place the apple puree and diced apple onto warm plates, and arrange the tortellini on top of them
Warm the vin jaune sauce, and then blend with a stick blender until frothy. Add a few drops of lemon juice and a little more vin jaune to taste if needed
Pour the frothy warmed sauce over the tortellini. Finish by scattering over the blanched sea herbs
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