Another one of my pasta favourite are ravioli. They can be served as a main dish, but here I used them to accompany my Italian herb oven roast beef.
All you need to make ravioli is a basic pasta dough and the pasta machine, but you do not have one, a good rolling pin should work to get a thin dough (and it is excellent exercise too!). To cut the ravioli out into squares, I used a knife, but a cookie cutter also works for fancier designs - I just wanted mine to be as big as my appetite!
From then on, the only thing you need to decide is the filling. The sweet licorice taste of the fennel complements with the smooth and creamy squash, a perfect combination for my whole wheat ravioli. The creamy
Ingredients for 3 generous servings:
1/3 basic pasta dough using whole wheat flour
Ingredients for about 2 cups of fennel and squash filling:
1 small acorn squash
1 small fennel bulb
1 small onion
½ cup dry white wine
1 cup romano cheese
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Green peppercorn sauce:
½ cup
1 small onion
½ cup cream cheese
1 cup dry white wine
1 lime
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Prepare the basic pasta dough.
2. While the dough is resting, prepare the filling.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
4. Cut the acorn squash into two and remove the seeds.
5. Place cut-side down in a baking dish, add 1 inch of water and bake for 1hr.
6. In the meantime, finely chop onion and fennel bulb, grate the cheese.
7. Heat one tablespoon olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat.
8. Stir fry the onion and the fennel until soft.
9. Add the wine and let simmer for 5 mins until all liquid is evaporated.
10. Once the squash is soft, let cool slightly and scoop into the fennel.
11. Stir in the cheese, remove from heat and season to taste.
12. Let cool to room temperature.
13. Roll the pasta dough as thin as possible and cut into 3 in. x 6 in. rectangles.
14. For each ravioli, spoon some filling on one half of the rectangle, leaving a ¼ inch border along each side. NB: The filling should be cool and hold together to prevent any tearing of the dough.
15. Moisten the border with cold water using a brush or your finger.
16. Fold the rectangle over to cover the filling, pressing the borders together using a fork.
17. Place each ravioli side by side on a floured surface, making sure not to overlap them.
18. Cook the ravioli in boiling salted water for 3 mins.
19. Before serving, heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan, over medium-high heat to prepare the sauce.
20. Stir in the onion until translucent then the cream cheese.
21. After 1 min stir in the wine to loosen the cheese and reduce until creamy.
22. Drain and add the peppercorns.
23. Season and reduce the heat just to let the sauce warm to a low simmer.
24. Serve immediately.
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