I have, over the years, nearly made myself crazy thinking, dreaming, drooling over stuffed pasta recipes. I've seen thousands and in my sleep - ate thousands! Do you see colour when you dream?? I sure do! And surprising enough, I can taste things in my sleep too (go ahead, call me strange).
Did you know that once you mix up the fillings you can put INTO pasta with the sauces you can put ONTO pasta - you'll probably have as many options as there are stars in the sky! The possibilities are endless!!
So yes, I've been dreaming of making my own filled pasta. Now, I'm not yet ready to tackle the pasta itself (my beautiful blue Kitchen Aide can work with an attachment that lets me roll pasta and I'd rather use that than do it all by hand beause I'm afraid of a pastry fiasco like I've experienced before) just yet. Mr. Hungry and I decided that we'd attempt some over the weekend and (let's be honest here, right) it went well but ONLY after I changed my plan of attack!
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| Prawn and Cream Cheese Ravioli with White Wine Cream Sauce |
I first tried this recipe using fresh Olivieri Lasagna Sheets, which to my brain meant it was pasta and pasta would STICK to pasta. Did not work. At all. I tried the right out of the package, soaked for a few minutes and soaked for a few more minutes. Nothing I tried would make them darn things STICK together. *sigh*
Thankfully Mr. Hungry was hungry enough (yet still interested enough) to run to the store and make an emergency purchase so we could make our meal (we had these the same night as the Roasted Garlic and Peppers with Goat Cheese Baguette) with as little screaming as possible. Me screaming. He saved the day, but don't tell him that!!
So here it goes!
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| See - pretty simple looking! |
Prawn and Cream Cheese Ravioli with White Wine Cream Sauce
Prawn Ravioli
Makes: 24 ravioli
24 large white prawns, shelled & tails removed
1 egg
2 tbsp fresh parmesan cheese
3 tbsp fresh parsley
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
3 tbsp softened cream cheese
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (I use Panko bread crumbs, just because I like the the texture of them more)
salt and pepper to taste
48 won ton wrappers (3"x3")
small bowl of water to seal your ravioli
Start by roughly chopping the prawns, depending on the size of ravioli you're going to make. I made ours using one sheet of wrapper for the top and one for the bottom, so was able to chop them larger than the size of kernel corn).
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| This is 'flat leaf', or Italian parsley |
Chop your parsley quite fine and grate your parmesan cheese fine too. Yes, you can use processed parmesan if you want, but remember that it's salty, so reduce your 'salt and pepper to taste' to accommodate for that.
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| Make sure you rest this mixture in the fridge! |
Salt and pepper to taste.
Now it's time to form your ravioli!
Place one sheet of won ton wrapper on your counter and drop a spoonful of your filling into the middle (keeping filling away from the edges). Then, wet your fingertips and run a bead of water around the wrapper edges. This will help your next layer of wrapper seal to the first.
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| I can not stress enough - SEAL YOUR EDGES! |
Line up and set a second sheet of won ton wrapper on top of the filling you placed on the first and seal the edges without squishing the filling and carefully making sure you remove all pockets of air in the ravioli. Press to ensure all of your edges are sealed.
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| You can trim the edges if you want, just leave some space between the filling and the edge, and seal well! |
Place finished ravioli on a plate and cover with a damp towel so they don't dry out.
Continue with remaining wrappers and filling.
You can freeze these for up to 3 months, just cook from frozen!
Put on a large pot of salted water to boil.
Now it's time for the cream sauce!
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| Again, simple ingredients make great food! |
Makes: enough for 4 servings
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil (OO)
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 minced shallot
1/2 cup white wine (Remember, if you won't drink it, don't cook with it)
1 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp cream cheese
2 tbsp fresh parsley, minced
1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan
salt and pepper to taste
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| My Paderno pan! |
Preheat a heavy frying pan over medium heat with butter and OO. Make sure that the butter/oil blend does not burn. Why butter and OO?? Butter burns VERY fast. OO will bring the burning point of the butter up, letting you cook better with butter to get the great flavour!
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| The smell alone was enought to make me drool! |
Mince garlic and finely chop shallot. Saute in frying pan until soft and tender (about 5 minutes). Add the wine, heavy cream and cream cheese and reduce, stirring often. Sauce will get thicker in time (about 5 minutes). Add chopped parsley and salt/pepper to taste. Add the grated parmesan cheese and parsley, stir well.
Reduce heat to simmer to keep warm until the ravioli are cooked.
Which brings me to say - now that your water is boiling, drop in your ravioli (about 6 at a time) and cook until they start to float (about 3-4 minutes). Remove ravioli from boiling water with a slotted spoon, drain in a colander and slip the tasty parcels into the pan you're making your sauce in. Toss lightly to coat, being gentle so ravioli don't break open. Continue with remaining ravioli.
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| Swimming, swimming ... |
Since the sauce was done when you turned it down to low, and the ravioli are cooked before they go into the sauce....YOU'RE DONE!
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| You HAVE to try this one!! |
And we had extra prawns, so I just sauteed them in some butter with a bit of garlic, lemon zest, salt and parsley and added them to the dish because no one wants to waste a prawn around here!
So, there's the meal. It was heaven, I swear! Rich, creamy - tasted like we were at a 5 star restaurant without having to leave the house!
As always, enjoy!
--The Cook
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