Pumpkin Ravioli with Sage Butter Sauce

Pumpkin ravioli with sage butter sauce

                                                                        From our Guest Blogger Angelo Funicelli                                                                                                            

This is one of those dishes that takes a very few, very modest ingredients and transforms them into a thing of wonder. As with many simple Italian recipes, every ingredient should be the best you can find. Fortunately, fine ingredients for this recipe are everywhere.

Growing up in an Italian-American family, I ate pasta in one form or another every day. Pasta is still my go-to comfort food. I’m not generally that picky about food, but for this recipe you MUST use fresh pasta dough. If you start thinking you can get away with using wonton wrappers, go to confession, say your penance, and then get back into the kitchen.

The filling is pumpkin purée and grated Parmesan cheese. Period. If you’re hardcore, buy a sugar pumpkin and make your own puree. Otherwise, get a can of high-quality, organic pumpkin purée. (Many versions of this recipe call for adding crushed amaretti cookies to the pumpkin/parm mixture, but I can’t imagine why.)

I make a double batch of these for New  Year’s Eve, and freeze half to serve on Valentine’s Day.

Ingredients

For the dough

2 c All Purpose flour

3 eggs (you might need any where between 2- 4 eggs depending on the size) 

(Ratio is roughly 1 large egg to 100 grams of flour. Proportions depend on many factors, such as the size of your eggs, and the dryness of the atmosphere.)

For the filling

1 c pumpkin purée 

1/3 c fresh grated Parmesan cheese

A whisper of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)

For the sauce

1 stick of butter

Fistful of fresh sage leaves, washed and dried

Making the dough

There are plenty of recipes for making fresh pasta. You can use a food processor, but the classic way is to make a volcano mound out of your flour, break your eggs into the crater, scramble them around with a fork, and start incorporating the flour into the eggs gradually, until you have a nice dough that you knead and slap around until it’s the right consistency to roll and shape. (Consistency is key - not so dry it cracks, or so wet it sticks. Only experience, touch and sight will teach how to achieve this. Watch some videos to see how the pros do it.)

Once the dough is formed, warp in plastic to retain the moisture and then let it rest to relax the gluten, 30 minutes or so.  (Don’t even ask me about gluten-free pasta.) 

Making the filling

While the dough is resting, mix the parm and nutmeg into the pumpkin, and keep the mixture handy.

Rolling and filling

Cut the dough into pieces the size you’re comfortable handling at one time. (I do quarters.) Keep whatever you’re not working with wrapped in plastic. (If it dries out you are lost.) Put a piece through your pasta machine, rolling the sheet to the thinness you prefer. If you don’t have a pasta machine, use a floured surface and a heavy rolling pin. (I used to make these paper thin, but over the past few years I’ve used a rolling pin and made the ravioli a bit thicker, like cavatelli or rigatoni. We like the heft and bite of the texture.) Roll it into a long rectangle.

When you’ve got a rectangle long enough to make some ravioli, mark the center point, and put blobs of the filling along half the strip, evenly spaced. (Make as many as you possibly can - any leftover scraps of dough really can’t be reused very successfully.) Fold the other half of the dough over the filling. Use a tool to cut out each filled section. I use a wineglass, which both cuts the ravioli and seals the edges. (If they don’t seal perfectly, press the edges down with the tines of a fork, which makes a nice fluted pattern.) Lay out your finished ravioli in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with floured parchment paper, and let them air dry until you’re ready to cook them.

Making the sauce

Put a stick of excellent quality, unsalted butter into a small saucepan with the sage leaves. Heat slowly until the butter melts. Take it off heat and let it sit out until you’re ready to eat.

Cooking, saucing and serving

Put the butter/sage sauce on a low flame to reheat. Check your ravioli - if any have too much flour on them, brush it off with a pastry brush. 

Bring a big pot of water (salted if you like) to a rapid boil. Drop in your ravioli. They’re done when they float, but a half-minute longer won’t destroy them.

Take them out with a slotted spoon, make sure no water is sticking to them, and plate them into pasta bowls. (I break out the Deruta for these.) Pour the sage-butter sauce over them. Serve immediately (pasta gets cold fast)  with fresh-grated, first-class parmesan cheese. I won’t report you to the carb police if you have some delicious, crusty bread on hand to soak up any leftover sauce.