Butternut ravioli with chicken, asparagus and a burnt sage and hazelnut butter
Ingredients
1 large skin on chicken breast
250g fresh butternut squash ravioli
1 bunch of asparagus, woody end removed and cut into 3
25g butter plus 1 tbsp
25g hazelnuts or almonds, chopped or pine nuts
1 tbsp fresh sage, finely chopped
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp sugar
Olive oil
Fresh parmesan
Method
Preheat the oven to 180c. Start with your chicken, pull off the skin and place the skin on a foil lined lipped baking tray. If you do not have a lipped baking tray, just make a lip with the foil, the skin will release a lot of oil and you don’t want this all over your oven. Put a generous amount of salt over the skin. Top the skin with another sheet of foil and ideally weigh down with another baking tray. Put the tray into the oven.
Put a large pan of heavily salted water to the boil.
In a frying pan that can go into the oven, on a medium heat, melt 1 tbsp butter with a drizzle of olive oil. Season the chicken breast with salt and pepper and put into the hot pan and cook without disturbing at all for 5 minutes. Turn over and cook for a further 5 minutes without touching moving or disturbing. Turn and cook for another few minutes and turn for another few minutes. You want to cook this until almost cooked. Put into the oven to finish off.
Check the chicken skin in the oven, it should be going golden. If it looks cooked, remove it and place on a sheet of kitchen towel otherwise return to the oven for a few minutes more.
To remove the woody end from your asparagus, hold the asparagus firmly at the bottom and just below the tip and bend the asparagus until it snaps, it will snap at the perfect point, removing all the tough stalk.
Your chicken should now be cooked. Slice into bite sized pieces. Put to one side and do not wash the chicken pan.
Cook the ravioli according to packet instructions - around 3 minutes. When the pasta has 2 minutes left, add the asparagus to the pot. Remove roughly 100ml of pasta water before you drain.
While the pasta is cooking, put the chicken pan back on to the heat and add the butter, sage and nuts, cook for a couple of minutes until fragrant but without the sage burning. With a slotted spoon remove the nuts and sage and place on to the kitchen towel with your chicken skin.
Add the reserved pasta water to the pan and bring to the boil, add the pasta and asparagus and chicken and with your slotted spoon, carefully mix together. Place into a bowl and crumble over the chicken skin, scatter over the nuts and top with freshly grated parmesan and a grind of fresh black pepper. Enjoy hot.