Pumpkin Ravioli with Butter and Sage

Recipe for Homemade Pasta with Amaretti Biscuits

Aug 9, 2009 Rebecca Ford

This recipe for Italian ravioli uses a pasta machine, so it's easy to make. The homemade ravioli is filled with pumpkin and fresh sage.

If you've ever fancied making your own pasta, why not start with this recipe for Pumpkin Ravioli with Butter and Sage? it comes from Twelve; A Tuscan Cook Book, by Tessa Kiros (pub. Murdoch £16.99) and appears here with permission.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Butter and Sage – Recipe

Ingredients – Serves 6-8

1 quantity of fresh pasta (method and ingredients below)

Pasta Dough Ingredients (makes around 650g – 1lb 7 oz)

• 450g (1lb) strong flour
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Salt

For the Filling

• about 1.3 kg (3 lb) pumpkin
• a little olive oil for greasing
• 2 Italian sausages, about 80 g (3 oz) each, skinned and crumbled
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• nutmeg
• 100 g (1 cup) grated
• Parmesan cheese
• 50 g (13/4 oz) Italian amaretti biscuits, crushed

To serve

• 160 g (53/4 oz) butter
• about 20 sage leaves
• about 100 g (1 cup) freshly
• grated Parmesan cheese

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F/Gas 6). Make the pasta dough: put the flour and 1 teaspoon of salt into a large, wide bowl or in a mould on your work table, and make a well in the centre. Break the eggs into the well and begin mixing them in with a fork, incorporating the flour into the eggs.
2. When the mixture starts to come together, begin kneading the dough with your hands on the work surface. Firmly push down onto the dough with your palms, then away from you with the heel of your palms. After about 10 minutes of kneading, the dough should be shiny, smooth and compact. Leave it to rest, covered, at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
3. To make the filling, slice the pumpkin into pieces of about 1 cm (1/2 in) and remove the seeds. Put into an oven dish greased with a little olive oil and bake for 45–60 minutes, or until it is cooked through and golden. Cool slightly.
4. Pan-fry the sausage bits with a drop of oil until they are golden brown, breaking them up with a wooden spoon. Scrape out the pumpkin into the saucepan and discard the skins. Sauté — to dry out the pumpkin — for 5 minutes or so. Put into a bowl to cool. Add the eggs, a generous grating of nutmeg, the Parmesan cheese and the crushed amaretti. Season with salt and pepper. Mix with a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth and consistent.
5. Divide the dough into about eight pieces. Work with one at a time, covering the dough you are not using to prevent it from drying out. Roll out the dough. Flatten it roughly into a rectangular shape to fit through the widest setting of the pasta machine. Roll the dough through - it should emerge longer and flatter. Fold the length of the dough in half and roll it through the same setting again. Repeat a few more times. Lower the setting by one again and pass the strip through. Continue lowering the setting and passing the pasta through once, until the last setting is reached.
6. If the strip is too long to work with, divide it into half lengthways. Lay the pasta sheets out onto your lightly floured work surface. Put about 1 heaped teaspoon of the pumpkin mixture at about 5cm (2in) intervals, in the centre along the length of the pasta strip. (Leave a border around each teaspoon of filling, to seal and cut so the top layer of pasta will stick to the bottom layer, thus enclosing the filling. Fold the dough over from top to bottom, enclosing the filling.
7. Brush around the filling with water, and lay another sheet of pasta over it. Press down gently with your fingers to seal the dough at the edges and around the filling. Cut into individual ravioli squares or rounds if you prefer. Make sure that the edges are sealed. If not, brush with a little water and press down with your fingers or with the prongs of a fork. Don’t worry if they look uneven, as home-made ravioli often do.
8. Put them onto a lightly floured tray. If you are not cooking them immediately, keep them covered in the refrigerator for a few hours. They can also be frozen at this point, in a single layer on a tray, and stacked up into a suitable freezing container once they are frozen.
9. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil with a tablespoon of oil to prevent the pasta from sticking together. Carefully add the ravioli and cook for about 5 minutes, testing one to see if it is done. The border of the ravioli should be quite soft, but if it is left too long, the inside will soften too much and leak out.
10. Lift the ravioli out with a slotted spoon, draining the water off well and put onto serving plates. Lightly sauté the sage leaves in a frying pan with the butter, taking care not to burn the butter and to just crisp the leaves. Drizzle the butter over the ravioli and scatter with a few of the sage leaves. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and serve immediately.

Here's a recipe for Tuscan Pasta with Nettles, also from Twelve Cookbook.

The copyright of the article Pumpkin Ravioli with Butter and Sage in Italian Cuisine is owned by Rebecca Ford. Permission to republish Pumpkin Ravioli with Butter and Sage in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Pumpkins - cook with fresh pasta and sage