This is a quick and a bit different lunch. It’s especially quick if you make the dressing the day before, and you adopt the sort of manufacturing production method I suggest below, laying out all the slices of prosciutto and distributing ricotta mixture and shredded rocket equally between them.
It’s worth getting the best prosciutto you can find – thin, soft, salty is what you want – it will raise these tasty morsels to another level.
If you have any left over you can cut through with a sharp knife and serve as a sort of crostini with drinks – a cool, dry, nutty sherry ideally!
Recipe for herby ricotta and rocket roulades
Serves 3 for lunch…. or 2 for lunch and some left over to enjoy with drinks later
Ingredients
- 250g/9 oz ricotta
- 160g/6 oz 10-12 slices Parma or San Danielle prosciutto crudo
- 2 tbsp capers – the salted ones are better than those in brine. If you have those in brine, go here to find out what to do to make them edible.
- 10 (or, at least the same number as slices of ham that you have) small sundried tomatoes in oil
- 40-60g/2 oz rocket
- some fresh herbs – thyme, mint, chives… all do well
- smoked salt (not much as the ham is salty) and freshly ground black pepper – or better still, Urfa pepper flakes
- 1 tbsp sherry vinegar
- 6 tbsp olive oil
- 2 – 3 generous stems of basil
- 1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed with ½ tsp smoked salt
- fresh crusty bread
Method
- Either in a small food processor, or in a beaker using your stick blender mix the basil, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and some pepper. You can do this a day ahead.
- In a medium mixing bowl mix the ricotta, some salt and the Urfa pepper flakes (or pepper), and the capers. Snip in some fresh herbs.
- Cut the sundried tomatoes in half.
- Shred the ricotta to bite-size lengths.
- Lay out the slices of ham. At each end put a spoon of the ricotta mixture. Cover with rocket, and at either end place a half tomato. Make sure you’ve got ricotta mixture and rocket evenly distributed between the slices. Roll up.
- Serve, drizzled with the basil dressing, with the crusty bread.
