Happy Monday! Let’s start off the week with some homemade pasta- ricotta and spring pea stuffed ravioli in a sage butter sauce to be exact! (I actually started Sunday off with homemade pasta – but it’s all the same, right?)
Cheesy stuffed dough in a creamy butter sauce – oh and there were vegetables in there too. That’s how I justified eating a big plate full, for the vegetables. I’ve been trying to stuff as many seasonal veggies in my mouth as possible so this time I thought I’d do some spring peas.
You can pretty much stuff your ravioli with any vegetable. Just cook it and throw it in the food processor with your cheese mix and you have yourself a “healthy” pasta filling (vegetables = healthy in my book).
I love fresh pasta! Yes, it taste so much better than store bought and yes, it takes very few ingredients, but it is a little work. You’ll need a pasta roller. I have a little handheld one I picked up a few years ago. I’m thinking I just need to invest in the attachment for my KitchenAid mixer, but I haven’t heard the best reviews for it. Has anyone had any experience with one?
The good thing about making homemade ravioli is that you can make a huge batch up and freeze whatever you don’t plan to eat that day. Then all you have to do is add it to some hot water and throw a sauce on top of it. I chose a sage butter sauce. I wanted to keep it simple so that the filling was the star of the dish.
Add a handful more peas on the plate and you have yourself a beautiful spring dish; elegant, fresh and secretly full of cheese. Lots and lots of cheese!
Ingredients
Pasta
4 cups all purpose flour
4 large eggs
Filling
1 cup fresh spring peas, or frozen peas that have been thawed
12 ounces whole milk ricotta
1-1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 whole egg
salt and pepper, to taste
Sauce
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
15 fresh sage leaves
Instructions
Pasta
Mound the flour in the center of a large wooden board. Make a well in the center of the flour and add the eggs.
Using a fork, beat the eggs together and then begin to incorporate the flour (starting with the interior rim of the well)
When half the flour is incorporated, the dough will begin to come together.
Start kneading the dough, using the palms of your hand.
Once the dough is a cohesive mass, set the dough aside. Scrape up and remove and dried bits of dough.
Continue kneading for 10 minutes, dusting the board with any excess flour. The dough should be elastic and a little sticky.
Wrap in plastic wrap and allow to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature before using.
Filing
In a food processor, add the peas, ricotta, Parmesan cheese and egg and puree till just combined.
Season with salt and pepper.
Roll out pasta dough to the thinnest setting on a pasta machine, using a good dusting of semolina between the resting sheets to ensure they don’t stick together.
Cut the past sheets into 4-inch squares.
Place a little less than a tablespoon of filling on one half of each square, then fold it over like a book to enclose the filling.
Press the edges of the ravioli together with your fingers or the end of a fork to seal. (I cut my ravioli in a half circle shape, but you could leave as is as well)
Bring 8 quarts of water to a boil.
Sauce
While the water is heating, heat the butter in a large saute pan over medium high heat until the foam subsides and the butter begins to turn a light brown color.
Add the save and remove from the heat.
Add 2 tablespoons salt to the boiling water then add the ravioli.
Cook until tender and heated throughout (about 3 minutes).
Drain the ravioli but reserve a few tablespoons of the cooking water.
Add the ravioli to the pan with the butter sauce and along with the reserved cooking water.
Toss gently over high heat for about 1 minute.
Pour the hot ravioli onto a warm platter and grate some fresh cheese over top.
Serve immediately.