Inasmuch as I promote this blog, I advise friends and acquaintances on Facebook of a new post. But I worry that this single act makes my writing performative and self promoting. I like to think of this space as journal that I leave lying around for anyone to flip through. To my benefit and perhaps detriment as a writer, my experiences of writing different newspaper columns blurred the boundaries between internal dialogue and communicating with strangers. Obviously, I wanted may column readers to appreciate the text, but it was the need to produce copy that pushed my writing into a more honest place, away from flattery, performance and cliche.
Okay, fuck this shit: ravioli. Last night I made ravioli for dinner like I used to as a cooking student and line cook in the 1980s, when ravioli was boss. I staged at Le Pavillon in D.C., where the kitchen was famous for its small lobster-filled ravioli in a chive beurre fondu. They were plump, taut, ruby-red, little bite-sized treasures.
Lots of places had lobster ravioli at the time, sometimes in color-striped pasta. (If not lobster, it usually contained some awful mixture based on sun-dried tomatoes.) I remember once having a rav party where friends and I made a hacked version using gyoza wrappers. Maybe it’s coming back? Lobster dumplings are the signature dish at S.K.Y. here in Chicago. Do formerly popular dishes come back in a pandemic? Should I be making sardine ravioli? No, gross.
Maybe there will be lobster ravioli in my future, but for now I am more than happy with the spinach ravioli I made for dinner last night. The three of us ate four dozen in a simple tomato sauce with a green salad.
For the filling, I used the curly-leaf spinach that came in my produce box from The Chef’s Garden (the gift that keeps on giving, like Hanukkah presents for a week). I also had the last of the kale from the box that needed using up, and I’m glad I did. It gave the filling some interest. To start, I finely chopped the kale along with a couple of nice foot-long green garlic shoots attached to sprouted cloves (also from the box) and sweated it in a good-God gob of butter. In went the washed spinach, and once it had wilted and most of its juices had evaporated I hit it with some crème fraîche and let that cook down and evaporate some. It all went into the food processor with salt, pepper, nutmeg, grated parm and two Triscuit crackers.
For the pasta, I eyeballed half measurements of this recipe from chef Jennifer Jasinski in Denver; it seemed like a lot of water, but the dough came out very supple and ideal for ravioli. I rolled it out to 5 on the KitchenAid pasta sheeter and for the first time ever, used the ravioli press I’ve had for 20 years. I’d normally just form the ravioli with cutters, but the press seemed like a quick way to make a lot of smaller, uniform dumplings, which is what I was envisioning.
The sauce presented a dilemma. I didn’t want to make a butter sauce in order to keep the richness and calories at bay and let the flavor of the nice veggies be more upfront. I had one small tomato and a handful of dubious, wrinkled grape tomatoes, so they went into a pot with some butter (some butter is okay, just not all butter), shallot and thyme. I simmered it covered until the tomatoes were jammy, added a bit of water, simmered longer, zapped with an immersion blender and strained. Thin, bright, clingy.
This made for quite a satisfying dinner with the last of my salad from The Chef’s Garden. I even made a second round for dessert. The pasta had such a different texture — lighter, stretchier — than any of the commercial versions that I’ve bought over the years and has made me lose my taste for ravioli.
More to come. Maybe even lobster!
This recipe is from memory, not tested with exact measurements.
Spinach-Kale Ravioli Filling
2 cups curly kale, washed, destemmed and minced
1 tablespoon mild garlic, minced (leave out or use shallot if the garlic is harsh)
2 tablespoons butter
6 cups spinach, washed and destemmed
1/3 cup crème fraîche or cream, or 2 tablespoons cream cheese
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon grated white pepper
1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano or grana padano (use less of another cheese, which may be too salty)
2 Triscuits or other crackers, crumbled.
Saute kale and garlic in butter over medium heat. Add spinach, turn up heat to medium high, and stir to wilt. Wait until the spinach expresses its juices and those juices start to evaporate before adding cream. Let reduce, stirring frequently, until cream has all but disappeared. Transfer to food processor and add remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth. Taste: it should taste nearly too seasoned. Add more salt if not.
Use in fresh pasta dough or wonton wrappers or gyoza skins.