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foodandwriting · 7 years

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Ravioli, Ravioli, I Like Me Some Butternut Squash Ravioli

Blogger: Vima Villalba

“Ravioli Ravioli Give Me the Formuoli”—a sweet chant in an episode from the legendary children’s television show, Spongebob Squarepants. I began my post this way because ravioli will be the hot topic for today, I love ravioli, and I also enjoy fun rhymes, so no other introduction could have been more fitting.

I remember when I was in the 3rd or 4th grade, and my mom used to work late into the evenings, I had to rely on canned or microwaveable foods to sustain me, because at that time I didn’t know how to cook. Chef Boyardee was one of my favourite canned foods, and I specifically favoured the raviolis over the other pastas. Of course, when you’re a kid, you think that everything tastes SO GREAT, but now as an adult you realize how naïve you were and move on to better things. While Chef Boyardee’s ravioli will always have a special place in my heart, I have tried and tasted sophisticated and different kinds of raviolis from various restaurants throughout my adolescence and adulthood.

One of my preferences is the classic Spinach and Ricotta Cheese Ravioli. The creamy, rich texture of the stuffing, in combination with the tartness of the tomato sauce drizzled on top, is a taste that never gets old. It’s also a simple dish to make which makes it more appealing. Personally, I have never made Spinach and Ricotta Cheese Ravioli, but I have made Spinach and Ricotta Cheese Stuffed Jumbo Pasta Shells, layered with the Classico Sweet Basil Marinara sauce and it tasted heavenly. I decided to mention this, because the only difference is the fact that I used Jumbo shells and not wrap it inside the ravioli dough. Other than the experience of eating those dishes, I would assume that they pretty much taste the same.

Another great dish that I’ve tried is a squash-filled ravioli—this is what I will be blogging about today. I’ve tried the Ravioli de Zucca from Terroni (the Adelaide location), which is stuffed with butternut squash and parmigiana, and covered with walnuts and gorgonzola sauce. It was a pleasant dish because when I bit into the ravioli, I tasted the sweetness from the squash, as well as the sharp taste of Gorgonzola from the smooth sauce. Another instance where I’ve tried a similar ravioli was at Scaddabush, an Italian restaurant that I truly adore. Their Zucca Ravioli is a dish where the hazelnut butter cream sauce, topped with poor man’s parmesan and fried sage envelop the butternut squash and Grana Padano filled raviolis. I also prefer this one over Ravioli de Zucca because when you take a bite you get both the cushiony and crunchy texture all at once from the filling and poor man’s parmesan. It’s like a party of vegetables and cooked dough in your mouth!

I thought it would be a great idea to learn how to make this dish at home, so that I could save money and in the near future, experiment with the sauces that go with the stuffing. I was initially wary about using the brown butter sauce instead of something else (mostly because of the fact that the sauce is 90% butter), but this homemade dish tasted better than I thought. I find that the hazelnut and sage really compliment the brown butter sauce. Hence, if for any reason you wanted to omit any ingredient, I would strongly urge you to keep the sage because the sage makes all the difference in the flavour. Since it is fried, there will not be a strong, pungent taste, but rather a subtle flavour. In terms of the mixture, feel free to go all the way with mushing the squash or keeping the filling chunky. Moreover, the original recipe did not include hazelnuts as part of the filling, but I prefer to have the crunch and thought that it would taste better with the finely chopped hazelnuts in the squash mixture. If you choose to follow this idea, just add a bit of hazelnuts, because a majority of the hazelnuts will be needed for the sauce. Most of my thoughts while making this dish will be added with the subtitle ‘commentary’, because I had some trouble while making this dish. For example, I did not have most of the specific materials needed for this recipe, nevertheless, the pasta came out great so my testimony to you is: if you believe, you achieve!

That’s enough blabbering for now, and I hope you get the chance to try this one out!

I adopted this recipe from Buzzfeed’s Tasty, and the original recipe (which has simpler instructions) can be found here: https://tasty.co/recipe/easy-butternut-squash-ravioli

Ingredients

2 small onions or 1 big onion, diced

1 whole butternut squash (small), skinned and chopped into cubes

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

15 sage leaves (washed)

A little bit over ¼ cup chopped hazelnuts

2 cups flour

4 eggs

Olive oil

5 tablespoons of Butter

1 lemon

Salt & Pepper, to taste

Grated parmesan cheese

Specific Materials

Rolling Pin

Food Processor

Ice cube tray

Directions

Pre-heat the oven to 425°F (220°C)

For the Squash Stuffing

1) Combine the chopped squash, diced onions, and minced garlic into a baking pan. Drizzle approximately 2 tablespoons of olive oil on top, then add salt and pepper to taste.

Commentary: To be honest, I just drizzled on what I thought was going to be 2 tablespoons of olive oil (LOL).

2) Toss everything until the onions, garlic, and squash are fully coated with the salt, pepper, and olive oil.

3) Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until the squash is a nice golden-brown colour.

4) Once the squash is ready, transfer it into a food processor, and add the brown sugar, a little bit of chopped hazelnuts, and parmesan cheese into the mixture. Pulse it until there are no lumps and the texture is smooth. Set it aside to cool down.

Commentary: Instead of a food processor, I used the magic bullet to blend out the mixture and it actually broke in the process, so I had to manually puree the squash mixture myself. I can confidently say that manually mixing the squash mixture turned out to be a success.

For the Pasta Dough

5) It is best to make the dough while the squash is in the oven.

6) Make sure that you clean the food processor because the dough will also be made using the processor.

7) Mix in the flour, eggs, and 1 tablespoon of olive oil into the processor, pulsing it until the dough twirls around and turns into an enormous ball.

Commentary: It is crucial to follow these instructions because I just “eyed” the amount of olive oil that I added in, which was a very bad idea as the dough didn’t even look like dough at first (SMH). But after I cooled it and added more flour to roll it out, it looked like dough (#Winning)

8) Take out the dough and wrap it in saran wrap.

9) Put the wrapped dough into the refrigerator and chill for 30 minutes.

Making the Ravioli

10) Take out the ball of pasta dough from the refrigerator and cut out approximately 2 ounces, rolling it out so that the pasta sheets are thin and wide.

Commentary: You already know that I “eyeballed” 2 ounces of pasta dough.

Commentary: Also, I didn’t know why chefs always sprinkled flour all over their table when they rolled out the pasta, but now I finally understand. The reason is so that the dough doesn’t get stuck onto the table or rolling pin (I am shook).

Commentary: I have a confession to make—I did not have a rolling pin at hand, so I had to use a cylindrical glass water bottle to roll out my dough (*cries). Thus, my ravioli turned out thick as you can see in the photos.

11) Take the ice cube tray and put one pasta sheet over it, while gently pressing down on the holes, but do not break the pasta sheet. Just put enough pressure to create an indent.

12) Place approximately a tablespoon of the butternut squash filling into the holes/indents.

13) Then place another pasta sheet on top of the ice cube tray, covering the butternut squash filling. Press down on the sides of the raviolis so that the filling is sealed.

14) Flip over the ice cube tray, cut off the excess dough, then separate the raviolis with a pizza cutter

Commentary: Any cutting tool will suffice.

15) Repeat this process until all the stuffing or dough is used up.

16) Boil water and add salt.

Commentary: The salt prevents the raviolis from sticking together.

17) When the water is boiling, place the raviolis and wait for 2-3 minutes or until they float to the top.

18) Drain the raviolis.

For the Hazelnut Brown Butter Sauce

19) In a pan, put in 3 tablespoons of butter, the rest of the chopped hazelnuts, and the sage leaves.

20) Let it simmer until the butter is browned and until the sage leaves look a bit crispy

21) Turn off the heat and squeeze a whole lemon into the sauce, then add salt and pepper to taste.

22) To thicken the sauce, add 2 tablespoons of butter.

23) Pour the boiled raviolis and toss them around.

The pasta is ready to be served!

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