or E is for Easy Toasted Ravioli
Before I launched into my Iron Foodie recipe, I decided to do a Proof of Concept pre-run (Mythbusters fan, yes).
I'd found plenty of easy-ish looking Toasted Ravioli recipes out on the interwebs, but I had no idea whether or not they would wind up tasting like the real thing.
Hey, what better time to take on a completely untried recipe than Thanksgiving? Oh, just about any time, I would normally say. Since I, however, am an experienced member of The School of Turkey Basting, I wind up with a fair amount of free time in the kitchen on Feast Day. So I jumped in.
What I Did:
1 egg
2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
1 cup stuffing cubes
1 pumpkin cookie, stale
frying oil
1 package of Spinach and Cheese Ravioli
1 jar of Vodka sauce
1) Use a fork to mix together egg and cream in a shallow bowl.
2) Put the stuffing cubes and cookie into food processor and mix until the cubes are crumbs. Place in a bowl or on a small plate.
3) Fill a skillet with oil for frying (I like to go about 1/2 inch deep. You do what suits you) and warm over medium heat.
4) Dip ravioli in the egg mixture, shake off excess.
5) Dip eggy ravioli in crumbs, shake off excess.
6) Place ravioli in hot oil. Fry 3-4 minutes per side.
7) Pour sauce into a small sauce pain and warm over low heat.
8) Put fried raviolis on a paper towel-lined plate.
9) Serve ravioli with sauce. Eat. Enjoy!
How Did it Go?
Great! I put this out as an appetizer and people devoured and praised it, despite not having ever heard of it before. (Not a lot of St. Louisians on hand here in Seattle.) So, concept proved as far as I was concerned.
What Would I Change?
- I started heating the oil a little late, so the first couple of ravioli weren't as crispy as I would have liked. I wound up adjusting this for my Iron Foodie recipe.
- The cookie crumbs wound up a little too big. They tasted ok, but it threw the texture off a little. (To me. Pretty sure my friends didn't notice/care.)
Showing posts with label I. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I. Show all posts
Friday, December 10, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
T is for Toasted Ravioli or I is for Iron Foodie Contest Recipe
Ok, Tech Week almost done, deadline looming, here, finally, is The Recipe.
(Here's Marx Food's Iron Foodie Contest explained, in case you're just now tuning in.)
Toasted Ravioli is a local specialty in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri and is very hard to find elsewhere. In fact, most people who haven't spent time in StL have never even heard of it. This is their bad luck, because it's very very very good. How good? The only hometown food I miss more is White Castle.
Since, as I mentioned earlier, I was already thinking in an Italian/meat-ward direction, Toasted Ravioli was a most acceptable brain wave. As usual, I hit the internet for some recipe theory research, and found some useful stuff.
In fact, I did a sort of proof of concept experiment as a Thanksgiving appetizer. It was definitely well received. But I decided Iron Foodie deserved no less than true, complete insanity. So, I made mine from scratch. Research debts also in the direction of Cooks dot com and Betty Crocker's New Cookbook (the 1st cookbook I owned as an adult).
What I Did:
~ Pasta ~
1/3 cup of macerated Dulse Seaweed*
2 large eggs
1 TBLSP olive oil
1/2 tsn Smoked Salt*
2+ cups flour
0) Soak the seaweed in boiling water for 15 minutes (this is macerating. big word, simple concept.)
1) Combine eggs, seaweed, oil and salt in a food processor until blended.
2) Put the flour on a decent sized flat surface and create a well in the middle (a sort of volcano shaped thing; the crater is to hold the liquid.)
3) Slowly work the flour into the liquid until completely combined. (This gets messy. No worries.)
4) At this point you will most likely have to adjust your pasta dough. If it is too dry (crumbly, not sticking together, i.e., what happened to me), gradually incorporate little bits of liquid (TBLSP at a time) until you achieve a nice dough consistency. If it is too sticky, gradually incorporate bits of flour.
5) Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 5-8 minutes.
6) Plastic wrap the dough and rest in the fridge for several hours.
~ Filling ~
1 cup cubed squash
2 TBLSP olive oil
1 lb. ground pork
1/2 tsp Smoked Salt*
1/2 tsp ground Tellicherry Peppercorns*
1/3 of a medium sized onion, chopped
1/4 cup fresh sage
2 TBLSP fresh parsley
2 cloves garlic, SMASHED!
1/4 cup white wine
1/3 cup macerated Dried Wild Porcini Mushrooms*
1/2 cup cottage cheese
7) Parboil squash
8) Cook oil, pork, salt and pepper in a skillet over medium heat until pork is thoroughly cooked.
9) Add all other Filling ingredients (except cottage cheese) to skillet, cover and reduce heat to low; stir occasionally.
10) Cut one third off of the chilled pasta dough.
11) Roll it through a pasta machine on the widest setting. (If you don't have a pasta machine, use a rolling pin and skip ahead to step 15.)
12) Fold the pasta sheet in on itself from the ends, roughly into thirds. Sprinkle lightly with flour. The idea is to get it to a width where you can turn it 90 degrees and run in through the pasta machine again.
13) Click the pasta machine down one setting and run the pasta sheet through again.
14) Repeat 13 until you get the pasta as thin as you want it. (For me, this takes it down to the narrowest setting. So you can read through the pasta. Your taste may absolutely vary.)
15) Turn the heat off on the filling.
16) Lay the pasta sheet out on waxed paper. Cut pasta circles out of it with an upside down glass. (There are other ravioli cutting methods, but this one best appeals to my innate sense of laziness.)
17) Add filling and cottage cheese to food processor. Pulse for about 20 seconds, until everything is just combined.
18) Spoon small heaps of filling on one pasta circle.
19) Wet the entire edge of the circle (use water, butter, milk, whatever really…..I used the water from macerating the Porcini Mushrooms).
20) Place a second circle on top, and gently press edges together all the way around.
***It's right about here that this becomes the longest recipe I've ever done on this blog. HUZZAH FOR IRON FOODIENESS!***
~ Sauce ~
1 macerated Aji Panca Chili*
1/2 heavy whipping cream
1 clove garlic SMASHED!
1 can tomato sauce
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
21) Slice open the chili and scrape out the seeds and membranes.
22) Chop chili and add it, garlic and cream to a small sauce pan. Warm over low heat.
23) Just as the cream wants to try boiling, turn off the heat.
24) Dump saucepan contents into food processor. Blend until completely mixed.
25) Return sauce to pan. Add tomato sauce, oregano and basil and warm over low heat, stirring occasionally.
~ Toasted…ing…ness…stuff... ~
1 egg
3 TBLSP heavy whipping cream
2 cups stuffing cubes
~ 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
oil for frying
26) Fill a skillet with oil for frying (I like to go about 1/2 inch deep. You do what suits you.) and warm over medium heat.
27) Use a fork to mix together eggs and cream in a bowl.
28) Put the stuffing cubes and cheese into food processor and mix until the cubes are crumbs. Place in a bowl or on a small plate.
29) Dip ravioli in the egg mixture, shake off excess.
30) Dip eggy ravioli in crumbs, shake off excess.
31) Place ravioli in skillet. Fry 3-4 minutes per side.
32) Put fried raviolis on a paper towel-lined plate.
33) Serve ravioli with sauce. Eat. Enjoy!
How Did It Go?
It went surprisingly well, given the large number of new things i was trying (ingredients and techniques), and considering that I've not made scratch ravioli in a long long time. Texture was right on, flavor was pretty nice. Mostly a win here.
Also:
- The seaweed gave a really neat color to the pasta dough.
- The mushrooms rounded out the taste of the pork in a way that surprised me.
- The chili sauce wound up being not too hot for me, which is something of a miracle, frankly. And not being in pain, i was able to appreciate the flavor.
What Would I Do Differently?
- More filling! I put about a teaspoon's worth of filling in each ravioli, which wound up being not quite enough. The pasta to filling ratio was too high, which buried a lot of the flavor of the filling when everything was put together. Lacked balance.
- More vegetables! I think I'd up the butternut squash ratio a bit, just to get more vitamins involved. I mean, since you're eating something fried, it's nice to strike a blow for Stealth Health when you can.
(Here's Marx Food's Iron Foodie Contest explained, in case you're just now tuning in.)
Toasted Ravioli is a local specialty in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri and is very hard to find elsewhere. In fact, most people who haven't spent time in StL have never even heard of it. This is their bad luck, because it's very very very good. How good? The only hometown food I miss more is White Castle.
Since, as I mentioned earlier, I was already thinking in an Italian/meat-ward direction, Toasted Ravioli was a most acceptable brain wave. As usual, I hit the internet for some recipe theory research, and found some useful stuff.
In fact, I did a sort of proof of concept experiment as a Thanksgiving appetizer. It was definitely well received. But I decided Iron Foodie deserved no less than true, complete insanity. So, I made mine from scratch. Research debts also in the direction of Cooks dot com and Betty Crocker's New Cookbook (the 1st cookbook I owned as an adult).
What I Did:
~ Pasta ~
1/3 cup of macerated Dulse Seaweed*
2 large eggs
1 TBLSP olive oil
1/2 tsn Smoked Salt*
2+ cups flour
0) Soak the seaweed in boiling water for 15 minutes (this is macerating. big word, simple concept.)
1) Combine eggs, seaweed, oil and salt in a food processor until blended.
2) Put the flour on a decent sized flat surface and create a well in the middle (a sort of volcano shaped thing; the crater is to hold the liquid.)
3) Slowly work the flour into the liquid until completely combined. (This gets messy. No worries.)
4) At this point you will most likely have to adjust your pasta dough. If it is too dry (crumbly, not sticking together, i.e., what happened to me), gradually incorporate little bits of liquid (TBLSP at a time) until you achieve a nice dough consistency. If it is too sticky, gradually incorporate bits of flour.
5) Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 5-8 minutes.
6) Plastic wrap the dough and rest in the fridge for several hours.
~ Filling ~
1 cup cubed squash
2 TBLSP olive oil
1 lb. ground pork
1/2 tsp Smoked Salt*
1/2 tsp ground Tellicherry Peppercorns*
1/3 of a medium sized onion, chopped
1/4 cup fresh sage
2 TBLSP fresh parsley
2 cloves garlic, SMASHED!
1/4 cup white wine
1/3 cup macerated Dried Wild Porcini Mushrooms*
1/2 cup cottage cheese
7) Parboil squash
8) Cook oil, pork, salt and pepper in a skillet over medium heat until pork is thoroughly cooked.
9) Add all other Filling ingredients (except cottage cheese) to skillet, cover and reduce heat to low; stir occasionally.
10) Cut one third off of the chilled pasta dough.
11) Roll it through a pasta machine on the widest setting. (If you don't have a pasta machine, use a rolling pin and skip ahead to step 15.)
12) Fold the pasta sheet in on itself from the ends, roughly into thirds. Sprinkle lightly with flour. The idea is to get it to a width where you can turn it 90 degrees and run in through the pasta machine again.
13) Click the pasta machine down one setting and run the pasta sheet through again.
14) Repeat 13 until you get the pasta as thin as you want it. (For me, this takes it down to the narrowest setting. So you can read through the pasta. Your taste may absolutely vary.)
15) Turn the heat off on the filling.
16) Lay the pasta sheet out on waxed paper. Cut pasta circles out of it with an upside down glass. (There are other ravioli cutting methods, but this one best appeals to my innate sense of laziness.)
17) Add filling and cottage cheese to food processor. Pulse for about 20 seconds, until everything is just combined.
18) Spoon small heaps of filling on one pasta circle.
19) Wet the entire edge of the circle (use water, butter, milk, whatever really…..I used the water from macerating the Porcini Mushrooms).
20) Place a second circle on top, and gently press edges together all the way around.
***It's right about here that this becomes the longest recipe I've ever done on this blog. HUZZAH FOR IRON FOODIENESS!***
~ Sauce ~
1 macerated Aji Panca Chili*
1/2 heavy whipping cream
1 clove garlic SMASHED!
1 can tomato sauce
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
21) Slice open the chili and scrape out the seeds and membranes.
22) Chop chili and add it, garlic and cream to a small sauce pan. Warm over low heat.
23) Just as the cream wants to try boiling, turn off the heat.
24) Dump saucepan contents into food processor. Blend until completely mixed.
25) Return sauce to pan. Add tomato sauce, oregano and basil and warm over low heat, stirring occasionally.
~ Toasted…ing…ness…stuff... ~
1 egg
3 TBLSP heavy whipping cream
2 cups stuffing cubes
~ 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
oil for frying
26) Fill a skillet with oil for frying (I like to go about 1/2 inch deep. You do what suits you.) and warm over medium heat.
27) Use a fork to mix together eggs and cream in a bowl.
28) Put the stuffing cubes and cheese into food processor and mix until the cubes are crumbs. Place in a bowl or on a small plate.
29) Dip ravioli in the egg mixture, shake off excess.
30) Dip eggy ravioli in crumbs, shake off excess.
31) Place ravioli in skillet. Fry 3-4 minutes per side.
32) Put fried raviolis on a paper towel-lined plate.
33) Serve ravioli with sauce. Eat. Enjoy!
How Did It Go?
It went surprisingly well, given the large number of new things i was trying (ingredients and techniques), and considering that I've not made scratch ravioli in a long long time. Texture was right on, flavor was pretty nice. Mostly a win here.
Also:
- The seaweed gave a really neat color to the pasta dough.
- The mushrooms rounded out the taste of the pork in a way that surprised me.
- The chili sauce wound up being not too hot for me, which is something of a miracle, frankly. And not being in pain, i was able to appreciate the flavor.
What Would I Do Differently?
- More filling! I put about a teaspoon's worth of filling in each ravioli, which wound up being not quite enough. The pasta to filling ratio was too high, which buried a lot of the flavor of the filling when everything was put together. Lacked balance.
- More vegetables! I think I'd up the butternut squash ratio a bit, just to get more vitamins involved. I mean, since you're eating something fried, it's nice to strike a blow for Stealth Health when you can.
Monday, November 29, 2010
I is for Iron Foodie Ingredient Sampling
Two of the items in The Marx Foods Mystery Box were
- Dried Wild Porcini Mushrooms
and
- Dried Aji Panca Chilies
Neither of which I had ever, to my knowledge, eaten. Yay for new food!
First things first, before I could really taste them, I had to macerate them...
...in this case, with boiling water.
And then wait 15-20 minutes.
The porcini mushroom had a nice intense flavor that, in weight, reminded me a bit of chicken liver. The texture was a bit chewy, so it's clear that I can't use these "raw".
The chili bits were, ummm, weeeeeell, I considered them spicy, but I tend to order a one-star at Thai and Indian restaurants. Even I can admit they were not really painful. And I could actually taste the red chili flavor. So "mild" is probably an accurate description.
Odds are good that we will find both of these ingredients in my Signature Recipe. :)
- Dried Wild Porcini Mushrooms
and
- Dried Aji Panca Chilies
Neither of which I had ever, to my knowledge, eaten. Yay for new food!
First things first, before I could really taste them, I had to macerate them...
...in this case, with boiling water.
And then wait 15-20 minutes.
The porcini mushroom had a nice intense flavor that, in weight, reminded me a bit of chicken liver. The texture was a bit chewy, so it's clear that I can't use these "raw".
The chili bits were, ummm, weeeeeell, I considered them spicy, but I tend to order a one-star at Thai and Indian restaurants. Even I can admit they were not really painful. And I could actually taste the red chili flavor. So "mild" is probably an accurate description.
Odds are good that we will find both of these ingredients in my Signature Recipe. :)
Monday, November 22, 2010
I is for Iron Foodie Thoughts
Not to give too much away before the actual recipe, but I've been chewing on the contest a bit (pun intended) and here's where I am:
- Everything in the box is essentially a spice (not technically, granted, but due to the dried-ness of things that would otherwise be more feature-able). This is both a great thing and a scary thing. (Yay, I can do anything! Whoa, I could do anything. Like that.)
- What do I like to cook? I ask myself, in order to narrow things down a bit. Answer: breakfast, dessert, Italian food, meat. I'm likely to do something in one or more of those categories.
- The fennel pollen is The Ingredient Least Likely to be Used. It's basically a more intense fennel experience. And, well, I kind of hate fennel. Not bell pepper level hate, but.....it reminds me of licorice (they're not related), which reminds me of NyQuil, which reminds me of unpleasant times.....you see the problem.
- Next up will be some ingredient tastings. Every time a cheftestant on a cooking reality show doesn't do this, I get very indignant at them (from the safety of my couch; yeah, I'm totally an armchair sous chef). So it's be pretty stupid of me not to. I'll keep you posted.
- Everything in the box is essentially a spice (not technically, granted, but due to the dried-ness of things that would otherwise be more feature-able). This is both a great thing and a scary thing. (Yay, I can do anything! Whoa, I could do anything. Like that.)
- What do I like to cook? I ask myself, in order to narrow things down a bit. Answer: breakfast, dessert, Italian food, meat. I'm likely to do something in one or more of those categories.
- The fennel pollen is The Ingredient Least Likely to be Used. It's basically a more intense fennel experience. And, well, I kind of hate fennel. Not bell pepper level hate, but.....it reminds me of licorice (they're not related), which reminds me of NyQuil, which reminds me of unpleasant times.....you see the problem.
- Next up will be some ingredient tastings. Every time a cheftestant on a cooking reality show doesn't do this, I get very indignant at them (from the safety of my couch; yeah, I'm totally an armchair sous chef). So it's be pretty stupid of me not to. I'll keep you posted.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
I is for I still -heart- South Park
I'm sitting here watching the episode of South Park mocking the Food Network (and Food Network addicts...er, like me) and it's just so wrong but oh-so-right at the same time.
They had me at the late-nite Food Network HOTline:
"Do you want to deglaze this pan with me?"
"Oh yeah, I'm gonna deglaze that pan with you so good."
"It's searing hot..."
"Oh yeah. Do you have a wooden spoon?"
"Yeah, baby, I have a spoon and it's really hard."
hee!
They had me at the late-nite Food Network HOTline:
"Do you want to deglaze this pan with me?"
"Oh yeah, I'm gonna deglaze that pan with you so good."
"It's searing hot..."
"Oh yeah. Do you have a wooden spoon?"
"Yeah, baby, I have a spoon and it's really hard."
hee!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)