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Stripping out the scary - Sweet Potato Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter

Writer's picture: JulietJuliet

This book is from 1983 and was apparently on sale for $4.99, and it shows. Of course, I'm from a few years earlier, and it also shows, so I should look past the "Beach Pate" and "Sauerkraut Noodles", right? It has some classics - lasagne, stuffed shells, carbonara, gnocchi, but we did lasagne a few weeks ago and I wanted something a bit different (Note: never, never Beach Pate different).



It's James Beard though, so I thought I'd use the basics and modernize it a bit. I'm going to use his basic pasta recipe, but make it into sweet potato ravioli. I used this recipe as a base for the filling/sauce, but then took it down a more savory path (see my ingredients below).


Ingredients:

Pasta:

1 1/2 c. flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 large eggs


Filling:

3 1-pound red-skinned sweet potatoes (yams)

1 tsp (packed) golden brown sugar

1 TB butter, room temperature

3 TB mascarpone cheese

1/4 c. parmesan

1/8 tsp nutmeg (ish)

salt/pepper to taste


Sauce & Fried Shallot Garnish:

1 cup vegetable oil

4 large shallots, cut crosswise into thin rounds, separated into rings

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter

8 large fresh sage leaves, thinly sliced

1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted

 

Put the flour with the salt in a mound on a (clean) countertop. Make a well in the center of the mound and break the eggs into the well. Beat the eggs with a fork, slowly incorporating the flour from the sides of the well. As you beat the eggs with one hand, your other hand should be shoring up the sides of the mound. After a while, the paste will begin to clog the tines of the fork. Switch to your fingertips until the flour and egg are all mixed. Press the dough into a ball. Wash your hands.



Now, it's time to use those ripped muscles you brag about online and begin to knead the dough. Press the heel of your hand firmly into the dough - pushing away from you. Fold the flap created back toward you. Turn the dough a quarter turn and start again. Knead for 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth. Once it's beautiful and smooth, cover with a towel or clingfilm, and take a well earned rest. At least 30 minutes, two hours is better - it will get nice and pliable.



While you wait for the pasta to take a nap, make the filling. Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut sweet potatoes in half lengthwise; rub with olive oil and place cut side down on baking sheet. Roast until tender, about 35 minutes; cool. Scoop potato pulp out of skins into small bowl. Add sugar, butter, mascarpone, parmesan; mash well. Season filling with salt and pepper (and maybe a tiny bit of nutmeg if you're into that sort of thing). Set aside. This will be too much filling for your ravioli - it's ok, you will eat it with a spoon while you roll out the pasta.



Now, pull out that hand cranked pasta machine that you used once and put in the back of your cabinet. Cut the ball of dough into 4 pieces. Take one, flatten with your hand (or a rolling pin if you want more to clean) and set the machine to it's widest setting (for me that's "1").



Feed the flattened dough through the machine while cranking. Fold it in half. Then send through the same setting again. Repeat this 4-5 times. This will continue to knead and smooth the dough so don't worry if it looks ragged the first few times. If you get holes, patch from pieces at the end. If the edges are ragged, fold in half lengthwise. If it's a distorted shape, fold into a square. Just keep running it through - you can't overhandle this dough.





Now, you're ready to start running it through the narrower settings. Start going up one setting at a time, running the dough through 2 times per setting. I stopped at #5 for my ravioli, but wished I had gone to #6 (we were gun-shy after making uber delicate ravioli at level 7 a few years ago that burst everywhere).


I used a ravioli maker which made it easy to drape dough over it, dimple places for filling, then add a teaspoon of filling, drape another sheet over, then use your rolling pin to seal/cut them.



If you don't have a form like this one, you can put the sheet of dough on the counter, add filling in even blobs on one side, then brush around the blobs with egg, and fold the dough lengthwise, sealing with a fork.


For fried shallots and sauce: Heat vegetable oil in heavy small saucepan over medium-high heat. Working in 2 batches, fry shallots until crisp and dark brown, about 2 minutes. Throw some whole sage leaves in afterward if you'd like - fry for 5-10 seconds. Using slotted spoon, transfer shallots to paper-towel-lined plate to drain. Cook butter in large pot over medium heat until beginning to brown, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Add sage and red pepper.



Meanwhile, working in batches, cook ravioli in pot of boiling salted water until tender, about 3 minutes (or until they float to the surface). Drain well. Add ravioli to pot with butter sauce; toss to coat. Transfer to plates, drizzling any sauce from pot over ravioli. Top with fried shallots and pine nuts (which I forgot); try not to eat them before you get to the table.



This has some of my favorite flavors and is 100000000 times better than the Trader Joe's Sweet Potato Gnocchi in Butter/Sage sauce. It took some steps, but I'm excited to eat the leftovers tomorrow (during meetings of course). My husband thought I was crazy, but he left nothing on his plate (and ate some of the cheese ravioli I made for my daughter). My daughter took two bites then ate cereal for dinner...there's no accounting for taste!


Going back to the scary in this book - my brother had the best reaction to the 80's Beach Pate..."As the late, great Rick James once said, 'cocaine is a hell of a drug'."



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