Fresh corn ravioli with herb cream sauce

Posted on by carrot sticks to your ribs

Every once in a while, I have a meltdown in the kitchen. I can usually handle it when things don’t go well, but this dish got the best of me. I first tried this recipe on Sunday, and much to my frustration it just wasn’t working out. The filling was too runny. I knew it as soon as I started stuffing the ravioli, but I kept going anyway. A verbal tirade ensued once I went to cut the squares and the runny filling oozed out from all sides. This was a stupid recipe with stupid instructions and stupid ingredients. Everything about it was stupid. Especially the corn. That was the stupidest part of all.

The corn, once pulverized, released quite a bit of water which I believe was the culprit of making the filling too runny. I made a half-ass effort to try and thicken it up by grating some parmesan cheese into it, but to no avail. I didn’t have anything else on hand to help thicken it up so I kept on going.

Look at that stupid filling.
Look at that stupid filling.

For each ravioli that held together, 2 more went into the pile of failures, seeping filling out onto my work area. Terry, bless her heart, trying to be helpful, suggested putting them in the oven and baking them. I wasn’t hearing it. “Just throw them in the oven and bake ‘em up, if they don’t work out, they don’t work out!” No. Thanks and please leave me alone. They were stupid and that was all there was to it.

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Conquering ravioli

Posted on by carrot sticks to your ribs

I learned how to make pasta from scratch just about a year ago. Ever since then, I’ve been obsessed with trying to get the perfect ravioli. My biggest challenge was getting the perfect shape, with the beautiful looking pillow top of filling, the perfect scalloped edges and consistently sized, every single time.

I started out going kind of free style like I learned in the class I took at The Chopping Block. (If you haven’t been there, consider checking them out the next time you need something for the kitchen or want to take a cooking class. They know their stuff and I’d rather give them my money than some big box culinary store. Although some of those stores have a place in my heart, too. I digress.) Some of my earlier ravioli turned out flat, too big or too small to fit the amount of filling and some just fell apart once they hit the water. I even tried this tool, which only sent me on a profanity-laden rage when the pasta got stuck to the mold and screwed everything up. The taste was always pretty good, but the final product and presentation was missing what I was aiming for.

Today, I decided to try that mold again. This time, I decided I’d coat it with flour first. I’d show that ravioli maker who was boss. So I went about rolling the dough, filling it with my goat cheese filling, and when I turned it over – YES! It fell right out all in a perfect, beautiful sheet of lovely, pillow-topped ravioli.

ravioli-uncooked

Unfortunately, that’s where the near visual perfection ends. It’s apparent that I have much to learn in the art of ravioli making. Although my uncooked ravioli looked awesome, once cooked, some fell apart. Almost all had been deflated. I think what did them in was too much air inside with the filling and a weak sealing. Bummers. To be fair, this is only my 4th time making ravioli.

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