Over my five-year career as a chef, I’ve made thousands of ravioli. I was once the pasta maker at Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis and Pastaria in Nashville. A raviolo (the singular of ravioli) is a type of dumpling with a filling sealed between two thin layers of pasta dough. At both restaurants, I made my dough in a commercial stand mixer. My typical recipe called for 24 whole eggs, 140 egg yolks and 10 pounds of flour. To make the filling, I had to blanch 7½ pounds of spinach and mix it into 9 pounds of ricotta. The next day I’d roll out the dough in an electric pasta sheeter and spend most of my 10-hour shift hand-forming tray after tray of ravioli. I used to love making ravioli, but eventually, I got burned out and fell out of love.
Until recently …
On Oct. 2, the first episode of Chef’s Table: Noodles, Volume 7 aired on Netflix. It featured California chef and pasta-maker extraordinaire Evan Funke. Funke has devoted his life to mastering the old-world techniques of handmade pasta. I was mesmerized watching him hand roll massive sheets of pasta thin enough to “read a newspaper through.” His voice-over humbly declared: “Few people realize what it actually takes. To be really good at making pasta, you have to love it. It’s my favorite thing to make and now 17 to 18 years later, I think I kind of have it.”
This show made me fall back in love with making pasta.
I just returned from my annual visit to Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur with a trunk load of exotic squash. Over the next couple of months, squash-based dishes will be featured on my menu rotations. My first project, inspired by Evan Funke’s Chef’s Table episode, is a spin on cappellacci di zucca, a squash-filled pasta that is a specialty of the northern Italian city of Ferrara. Instead of trick-or-treating on Halloween, locals spend the final weekend of October at festivals celebrating pumpkins and pasta. Squash wasn’t indigenous to the region, but was brought over from the Americas by the Spaniards. Cappellacci (meaning “little hats”) is a pasta shape dating to 1584.
Instead of the traditional “little hat” shape, I made my pumpkin-filled pasta with an adorable pumpkin-shaped ravioli mold I bought from Massachusetts woodcarver John Welch. I discovered John’s work on Instagram.
While you might find making pasta dough by hand to be tedious, I find it calming and therapeutic. A detailed description of the technique would exceed the space limit of my column. Rather, I recommend the tutorials from the excellent websites Serious Eats and Pasta Social Club: seriouseats.com/fresh-egg-pasta and pastasocialclub.com/post/ravioli-101.
Winter squash ravioli with sage brown butter
Both the pasta dough and squash filling can be made a day ahead. The dough benefits from an overnight rest in the fridge. Rolling out the dough and forming the ravioli is time-consuming, so I like to spread the work out over two days. Making pasta dough from scratch is worth the time and effort, but there’s no shame in streamlining the process by substituting wonton wrappers. You can usually find them in the grocery store’s produce aisle.
Adapted from Pasta Everyday by Meryl Feinstein.
Ingredients:
For the ravioli filling:
2 pounds butternut squash
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 ounces finely grated Parmesan
Whole nutmeg
For the sage brown butter sauce:
1 ½ sticks unsalted butter
24 fresh sage leaves
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Roast the squash: Cut squash in half crosswise, peel, scoop out the seeds, and cut into 1-inch cubes, Toss the squash cubes in olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and place on a parchment-lined sheet tray. Roast, flipping halfway through, until very tender, about 35-40 minutes.
Brown the butter: Cook the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the milk solids separate, foam, and become golden brown, about five-seven minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and continue to stir until the foam subsides and the milk solids at the bottom of the pan are toasty brown.
Pour the brown butter into a bowl to stop the cooking.
When the squash is cool enough to handle, transfer to a mixing bowl and mash with a fork while slowly incorporating the brown butter. Mix until the mixture is smooth, then add the Parmesan and season to taste with salt and grated nutmeg. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or overnight.
If using homemade pasta dough, divide into four pieces. Move one piece to a floured work surface, and rewrap the remaining pieces to keep them from drying out. Roll out the dough to about 1/16 of an inch. (Follow the instructions from the websites listed above for detailed instructions on forming the ravioli). If using wonton wrappers:
Put a tablespoon of filling in the center of a wrapper, moisten the edges with some water, top with a second wrapper, and seal the edges with your fingertips.
Make the butter and sage sauce:
In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the sage leaves and fry until crisp, about two to four minutes. Transfer the sage leaves to a paper towel. Stir the butter until the milk solids separate and begin to turn golden, about five-seven minutes. Remove from the heat and stir until the butter deepens to amber.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the ravioli in batches to prevent overcrowding the pan. Cook until they float to the surface, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook another two minutes more. Remove with a slotted spoon.
Return the skillet with brown butter to medium heat. Add ¾ cup of the pasta cooking water to the pan and whisk the sauce until it emulsifies.
Add the ravioli to the skillet with a slotted spoon and swirl until the ravioli are completely coated and the sauce has thickened slightly, about two minutes. Remove from the heat.
Plate the ravioli and serve with grated Parmesan and fried sage leaves.
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