CIN CIN AT HOME : Tagliatelle with salmon, chestnuts, mascarpone & dill

Recreate this Cin Cin dish at home with this recipe from our Head Chef, Jamie Halsall.

Ingredients

For the pasta:

250g of 00 flour

1 whole egg and 6 egg yolks (good quality eggs)

A drizzle of good olive oil

A pinch of salt

Make a well in the flour and add the eggs and olive oil. Combine the ingredients with your fingers to form a dough, kneading for about five minutes until it becomes smooth. Wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for at least an hour.

Roll out the pasta, first with a rolling pin, a little flour to dust, until it’s as thin as you can go, then transfer to a pasta machine. A good rule of thumb is to start from the thickest setting, work your way down to the thinnest one, and then all the way back up. Then back down to a one or a two; not too thin as you need the tagliatelle to have a bit of texture and thickness. Dust the sheets liberally with flour, fold once, then cut with a knife into 1cm strips. Dust with more flour and set aside whilst you prepare your sauce, but for no longer, or it will dry out and cook unevenly.

For the sauce:

2 salmon fillets

12 roughly chopped chestnuts (the precooked vacuum-packed ones are best)

4 tablespoons of mascarpone

1 leek, rinsed and chopped into 1cm slices

1 bunch of dill, finely chopped

A squeeze of lemon

Drizzle your salmon fillets with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and bake, skin side up, in the oven for around ten minutes. Remove the skin and set aside.

In a pan, roast the roughly chopped chestnuts in a little olive oil for a few minutes over a gentle heat. Once toasted, add the leek and sweat them off, adding a pinch of salt and a splash of white wine to help them soften. Gently fold through the mascarpone and let it melt in.

Drop the pasta in a pan of salted, boiling water. It’s even better if you’ve got a basket. It’s cooked when then pasta starts to float and that should take no more than thirty seconds as it’s so thin and fresh.

Drop the cooked and drained pasta to the sauce and flake your salmon into the pan, then throw in your chopped dill. Be generous with it. Mix the whole thing together. Be careful not to break the salmon up too much.

Test for seasoning. The mascarpone is bland and so it will need more salt. Add more olive oil, and a squeeze of lemon juice to finish. That’s it. Divide into four bowls then add a little bit more olive oil. Always a bit more olive oil.