Earlier in the week, one of my friends and I went to a little restaurant in Hillsdale called Capitol Coffee House & Bistro for lunch. After perusing the menu, I decided on the special: Four-cheese ravioli in a white wine cream sauce. And I’m so glad I did. They were probably some of the best ravioli that I’ve ever had. The only complaint I had was that there weren’t enough of them…they were so tasty I could’ve eaten about 10 more. Dessert was a flourless chocolate torte with a really yummy mixed berry sauce that tasted mostly like blueberries. I’m generally not a big blueberry fan, and I wouldn’t think to pair them with chocolate, but this combo really worked.
My positive experience with the ravioli prompted me to ask the waitress exactly what four cheeses were used in the filling. She told me they were Taleggio, Mahon, Provolone, and Mozzerella. With this in mind, I thought back to the pasta sheets I’d noticed last time I went to Pastaworks, and started to plan when I’d try to duplicate the ravioli in my own kitchen.
Between one thing and another, I didn’t get an opportunity to try my hand at ravioli making until this afternoon. I called around, and found that New Seasons in Orenco had all of the required cheeses. I figured that since they carry fresh pasta from Pastaworks there, I’d be able to get the sheets with no problem. However, I was mistaken. Apparently, Pastaworks doesn’t sell the sheets to stores, they only carry them in their retail outlet, which is a 45 min drive from our house. So despite a disasterous first attempt at fresh pasta-making about 5 years ago, I decided to steel myself for another attempt. I bought all the cheeses, with the addition of whole milk ricotta, and headed next door to Kitchen Kaboodle to buy one of those nifty pasta roller attachments for my Kitchen Aid mixer. One hundred dollars and 10 minutes later, I emerged, bag in hand, ready to try my hand at ravioli-making.
And hallelujah! It was a success! The dough, which was just 3 eggs, two cups of flour, and about a tablespoon of water, came together and rolled out beautifully. The filling turned out really well; I basically just grated and mixed all the hard cheeses together, added in the taleggio and ricotta, mixed in some garlic and parsley, and bound it together with an egg. I made a cream sauce with some white wine, parmesean, and heavy cream, and tossed the cooked ravioli in it. As an afterthought, I added some finely chopped chives from the pot growing on our front porch (the only thing I haven’t managed to kill) for color. I’m glad I did, the flavor of the chives added a nice contrast to the creamy sauce.
I brought the ravioli over to our neighbor’s house for dinner, along with a spinach salad with oranges and almonds and some ciabatta bread. I’d made a chocolate-almond cake on Tuesday, so I pulled it out of the freezer and made some ganache to glaze it with for dessert.
I’m sooo full. And proud of myself. I consider myself pretty fearless when it comes to baking, but I find savory cooking to be a lot more intimidating. It was really cool to make something at home that was on par with something I’d order in a restaurant. I can’t wait to play around more with the pasta maker. Hmmm…linguine con pesto…or lasagne…the wheels are turning…