What you see pictured above is certainly not the prettiest thing I've ever made. It was without a doubt the most interesting though. It's another recipe from the "Everyday Stuffed Pastas" section of the "Everyday Pasta, Polenta, and Risotto" chapter. Introducing, Pumpkin Ravioli with Sage and Toasted Hazelnuts.
Where might one find pumpkin ravioli? I have no idea. Perhaps some sort of Italian specialty store or something. I knew I would not be able to find it anywhere and to save my self the frustration, I decided to make my own pumpkin ravioli. You're probably picturing me slaving away making homemade pasta, then running it through a pasta machine and what not. No, no. Turns out my constant watching of Food Network has paid off and I used wonton wrappers instead.
What's even better, I looked ahead to the next stuffed pasta recipe in the book, and Giada actually has you use this method for the next one! Ergo, I followed those instructions.
First off, I toasted the hazelnuts in the toaster oven for about seven minutes at 350 degrees. To my surprise, they did not get as fragrant as I had hoped, but they were still delicious.
Next, I set off making my ravioli. I started with some canned pumpkin and added just a touch of pumpkin pie spice to it. Then I made an egg wash to make the ravioli stick together with one egg white and touch of water. I spooned a teaspoon or so of the pumpkin onto one wonton wrapper that I had brushed with the egg wash, then pressed another wrapper on top of that.
I put far too much filling in each ravioli and it seeped out the sides which made me worried about the wrapper sticking together. I was supposed to use a ravioli cutter to trim the edges, but I don't happen to have one of those just lying around, so I tried to make semi-fancy edges with a butter knife. No such luck.
Once my water was at a boil, I carefully dropped the raviolis in and waited for the to float. Let me tell you, this step was terrifying. The whole time I was expecting them to completely fall apart and end up with a pot of orange goodness, but for some odd reason I must have done something right and they weren't too bad. I should've listened to Giada when she said to add some vegetable oil to the water to prevent the ravioli from sticking to each other though.
I tried to get the ravioli out of the water without them falling apart, but one or two kind of burst a bit. And they stuck together. This didn't really bother me considering I don't need to have them separated to eat them.
Next, I went to work on the brown butter sauce. Being the naive health nut that I am, I bought light butter considering this recipe called for a good amount of actual butter. Note to self: light butter does NOT brown. This wasn't too big of a deal, because it still tasted good, I was just expecting something totally different. After about four minutes, I added some torn up sage leaves to the butter, then removed it from heat and stirred in a little more pumpkin pie spice.
I topped the whole dish off with the toasted (and chopped) hazelnuts as well as some Parmesan cheese. Like I said before, it wasn't pretty. But I never claimed to be a food stylist. Despite its appearance, the dish was quite good! It had a distinct autumn flavor to it and was kind of like comfort food. If I had gone for the full fat version, it may have turned out more as expected, but I still like the taste of light butter so it was fine by me.
And did I mention that I made my own ravioli? :)
I will be cooking AGAIN tomorrow night (crazy!) so please come read again then!
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