My ever generous shroom supplier gave me a baggie of Chanterelles last week. These foraged golden treasures always inspire me to make something special. Previously, I have made risotto, tarts, and pasta. This time I decided I wanted to spend the whole evening in the kitchen, since I rarely get to cook these days. Ravioli was a project that seemed perfect. I found this recipe for ravioli where the dough was made with potatoes. I sure do love me some gnocchi, so I was all over it.
The dough was very soft and quite sticky. It really was more of a gnocchi type dough than a regular pasta. This kind of made it a challenge to roll out successfully... it took a couple tries and lots of flour dusted on the counter to finally figure out. But once I did the process wasn't too hard.
For the filling, I thinly sliced a large yellow onion and sauteed it in butter, cooking it on low slow heat to make them nice and caramelized. I set those to the side, and in the same pan cooked 3 cloves of minced garlic, 1 thin sliced shallot, a dozen leaves or so of fresh sage, minced, roughly chopped chanterelles (about 2 cups whole) and roughly chopped pecans and walnuts (about 1/2 a cup each), and salt and pepper. I cooked all that until the shrooms started to soften, sprinkling it with about a tablespoon of flour to coat everything. Remove that from the heat and add to a food processor bowl along with the onions. Pulse several times until you have a chunky but sticky filling.
For the pasta: Put potatoes into a large pot, cover with salted water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain potatoes, return to pot, and dry slightly over medium-low heat, 4–5 minutes. Press potatoes through a potato ricer or food mill into a bowl or a sheet pan and set aside to cool.
Put potatoes, flour, beer, yolks, and salt to taste into a large bowl; gently mix into a soft dough. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; divide into 2 balls. Cover 1 ball with plastic wrap; refrigerate. Roll out remaining dough into a 10" × 14" rectangle; cut in half crosswise. Spoon some of the filling in small mounds (1 generous tsp. each) on half the dough, keeping them spaced about 2" apart. Lay other half of rolled-out dough over mounds; press down in between mounds to seal ravioli. Using a ravioli cutter or pizza cutter, or like me, a drinking glass with a smallish ( 2 1/2 inch) mouth to cut out around the mounds. Transfer to a lightly floured sheet pan. Repeat with remaining dough and filling.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over medium-high heat. Gently drop in ravioli and simmer until floating and cooked through, about 10 minutes.
Once they were cooked, I sauteed some more fresh sage leaves, ripped up, in some butter and olive oil, then tossed the cooked ravignocchis in that. Sage butter has become one of my favorite ways to sauce pasta... especially when there are earthy and nutty flavors involved.
This sure was a project, but I was able to freeze a bunch of them for future dinners. And a very satisfying, comforting dinner at that!
