Monday, January 11, 2010

Ravioli With Browned Butter


I made browned sage butter to serve with these spinach and cheese ravioli...and I didn't burn it. I think that might be a first. I wish I had some helpful advice other than keep whisking and don't take your eyes off of the pan-but I don't. So just keep whisking, and don't take your eyes off the pan. There, wasn't that helpful? You know what else is helpful advice? Don't make browned butter when you can't eat-the fragrance is torture. Most of the time I feel too nauseated to be tempted by anything I'm cooking, but there's something about the smell of browned butter that makes me just want to go hide somewhere and cry because I can't eat it. I don't think I'm going to be making that again for a while. I actually thought about putting it in the blender with some extremely thin, runny porridge to see if I could manage it, but decided it wasn't worth cleaning the blender afterward for something I probably couldn't eat anyway. I spend a lot of time walking into the kitchen looking for something to eat, out of habit I suppose-and then kind of shrugging and walking out. I do that a lot. It's maddening, really. I have no idea why I still maintain a cooking blog. Wow, that was off-topic. Sorry. Back to the ravioli...

The filling for the ravioli wasn't terribly exotic. A cooked block of frozen spinach, a container of full-fat cottage cheese (drained and forced through a sieve) some dried minced garlic, and a generous grating of hard cheese. See, I told you it was basic. I made a pasta dough with a bit more than half semolina, which I find helpful when making ravioli. The recipe made quite a bit of food, so I froze half of the ravioli for a quick dinner in the future.

For The Filling:

A large container of full-fat (4%) cottage cheese, drained and forced through a sieve until smooth.
A block of frozen, chopped spinach-cooked and squeezed dry of liquid
1/4 teaspoon dried garlic granules
Black pepper
About 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese (or any other hard cheese you like)

Mash it all together with a wooden spoon until smooth. Chill until you are ready to fill ravioli.

For the Ravioli Dough:

3 egg yolks plus 1 whole egg beaten until light
3 tablespoons cold water
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups semolina flour
(about) 1 cup AP flour

Add the cold water and salt to beaten eggs. Stir in semolina and as much of the AP flour as you can until you have a stiff dough. Knead until smooth. Wrap in plastic and let rest 30 minutes at room temperature before rolling out.

Don't overfill the ravioli. I know you want to-but don't. I let mine dry on racks at room temp for about 20 minutes and then I keep them (still on racks) in the fridge until I'm ready to boil them. If you freeze the extra, chill them on a plate before transferring them to a bag to prevent sticking. Boil the ravioli gently, so you don't burst the filling and lift them out with a slotted spoon rather than dumping them in a colander to drain. Drizzle on the butter and serve immediately.

1 comment:

kemarias said...

Hi just stop by your blog. This looks so yummy. I want to try and make it soon.