Butternut Squash Ravioli

[medtran49]

Made fresh butternut squash ravioli for dinner tonight with browned butter sage sauce, with toasted walnuts and papillion blue cheese on top. It was yummy. I've finally mastered making pasta, especially ravioli, and rarely ever have tough pasta anymore. YEAH! Roasted the squash in the oven a couple of days ago with just a little salt, pepper, and some butter smeared on the foil, squash cut side down. Scraped it out and stored in the fridge until today. Took it out early this morning, mixed with a little ricotta, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and then put it in a colander to drain all day, stirring occasionally. Jeez, I cannot believe how much liquid drained out.

After it was nicely drained, tasted it again, added a little more salt/pepper, a couple of dashes of white balasamic vinegar cause it needed some acid and I didn't have any lemons earlier, microplaned a little parm in there. Tasted again and decided we were ready to go. I had made the pasta dough a few hours earlier, wrapped in plastic and stored in fridge.

Started the butter and sage cooking over low heat with salt added (we use unsalted butter), let it cook for a few and then pulled it off so the sage could infuse.

Divided the dough up and started rolling. Craig cranks while I guide. I use a tablespoon-sized ice cream scoop for the filling. Love that thing. We ended up with 34 nice-sized ravioli. So we'll cook half of them tonight and freeze the other half.

While the water finished heating to a very slow boil, put the butter/sage back on the stove, finished browning the butter, pulled the crispy sage out and put in some fresh, then pulled it off the heat and let it stand.

Cooked the ravioli, drizzled with the browned butter/sage sauce, sprinkled with the toasted walnuts, then crumbled the blue cheese over the top and served. It was great though I thought the blue cheese was a little overpowering and thought we should stick to parm. Craig thought it was great as is.

We'll post pics tomorrow. Too tired after my day today, want to go sit down and put up my feet.

Karen

 

[NoraC]

Yum! I have heard of this combination with goat cheese instead of Blue, but you may be right with the parm. Good info about the draining.

 

[Janet H]

Sounds amazing. I love blue cheese (well all kinds actually) and think it goes well with this dish... maybe using less is the key - just a little goes a long way

In either case, experimenting should be fun.

 

[medtran49]

There really is a lot of liquid in the squash even with roasting it. When I pulled out the container of roasted squash yesterday a.m., there was liquid almost 1/3 of the way up. Of course, I poured that out before I made my filling mixture but a whole lot more drained out once I put the filling in a colander.

That explains, of course, why the last time we made butternut squash ravioli I had problems with my ravioli sticking to the floured parchment paper and the bottoms breaking open. Live and Learn!

I actually didn't use that much blue cheese, don't think you could get the crumbles much smaller with that particular kind of blue (pretty soft), and it's not one of the real strong ones either. I love blues of all types but I think you just need something a bit milder for this dish.

Karen

 

[CraigC]

As Karen promised, the pictures.

And ready to eat.

Craig

 

[Mimizkitchen]

Those look AMAZING, and your pasta looks so silky... That's the difference between homemade and store bought... Nice job!!!

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

Good Job Craig you walk the walk. I like to do crazy non standard dishes that I make up.
Bacon Egg and saute potato ravioli,
Filing
Fry pots crispy and mash, mix in fried bacon bits with a little of the bacon fat and chill.
Roll you pasta strips double wide, put a big blob of the potato mix in the middle and make a well in it to take a small fresh egg yolk, put on top layer of pasta and cut out. 2 to three mins in boiling water should leave your yolk runny but cooked.
Dress by melting some butter in the fry pan you cooked you bacon in

 

[medtran49]

Those look AMAZING, and your pasta looks so silky... That's the difference between homemade and store bought... Nice job!!!

Thank you, they were great.

Karen

 

[niquejim]

I do a butternut squash and bacon ravioli in which I use a chocolate pasta dough and then saute with truffle butter, garlic, mushrooms, pumpkin seeds and a bit of heavy cream

 

[zfranca]

Since we are talking ravioli, I would like to publish my favorite recipe, from my cookbook "The precious ingredient":
Spinach and sausage ravioli

Ingredients:
1 batch of egg pasta
8 oz fresh sausage, crumbled
⅓ cup chopped onions
1 clove of garlic (pressed)
1 TBS olive oil
8 oz cooked spinach (well squeezed)
¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
¼ cup breadcrumbs
1 egg
s&p to taste

Directions:
Gently sauté onions and garlic with oil until translucent add sausage meat and cook until slightly brown. Squeeze as much liquid as you can out of the cooked spinach, chop coarsely and add to the pan, cook on medium heat until all liquid evaporates. Remove from heat and let cool. Process about four seconds in the food processor. (Do not purée it). Transfer to a mixing bowl to cool.

Add remaining ingredients and adjust salt and pepper to your taste. If the mixture appears runny, add more breadcrumbs or parmesan cheese, if it appears too stiff, add a little milk.
Keep refrigerated until ready to use. Proceed to make ravioli following Technique for making ravioli. Serve with brown butter sauce. Makes about 160 ravioli (34 oz)
P.S In order to avoid soggyness, I freeze the ravioli immediately, even though I might cook them the say day.