Butternut Squash Ravioli

Remember when I said I was going to post something reminiscent of fall? Something with sage?

Today is your lucky day.

I decided to spend my Labor Day laboring in the kitchen making a ton of ravioli. Three delicious flavors emerged (you’ll see them appear over the next week or two), but I have to say I’m most proud of this one: butternut squash ravioli.

Why am I proud, you ask?

I’m happy to report that other than the tiny amount of butter I used when roasting the butternut squash, there is no added butter or heavy cream in this filling. Most squash purées call for some form of cream to be added, but I think roasting the squash gives it such a creamy wonderful texture on it’s own that there’s no need to add extra fat.

Ok, being completely honest? As I was puréeing the mixture I forgot to add the butter and cream. But it really worked to my advantage!

For the filling:

*Pretend the mascarpone cheese, butter, and cream are not in this picture. None were used in the making of these ravioli.

Directions
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.

The hardest part about working with butternut squash is cutting it in half. Fortunately, John and I acquired some new knives on his birthday that have made cooking easier, and more enjoyable, than ever before.

After sharpening your knife (trust me, it’ll help) slice open your butternut squash.

Grab a large spoon and scoop out the seeds and strings. I have zero interest in eating that.

Just looking at it makes me think of fall. (Somewhat unrelated, it is currently 65 degrees here. The windows are open, I’m thinking of setting up camp on the balcony, and life is good again.)

Place the squash halves on a baking sheet, skin side down, and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Take ½ tablespoon of butter and dollop it on the squash.

Roast in the oven for at least an hour, or until a fork goes into the squash easily. I let mine go for about 1 hour 25 minutes. Smells like fall.

While the squash cools, grab some hazelnuts. We ended up buying whole hazelnuts that needed to be removed from the shell. This… was an interesting experience. Apparently, to remove hazelnuts from their hard casing, you need to use a hammer.

And thus began the fun game of finding random hazelnut shells around the apartment.

Oh, you thought I was joking?

John wanted to be the one to break the shells open. Sure, ok. I’d rather not use the hammer anyway. So he walks over to our dining room table and begins whacking at a hazelnut. On the table. With a hammer. Whatever man, if he breaks the table I guess we’re buying a new one.

Extracting the hazelnuts proved to be more difficult than we thought. Those shells are pretty tough. After a few shells went flying around the room, we ended up putting the remaining nuts into a large Ziploc bag.

At least things weren’t flying around anymore.

Well, until the bag broke. In which case we still had things flying around, but in smaller quantities. Regardless, he got the job done.

Next, grab a spice or coffee grinder. Add your hazelnuts and grind into a fine powder.

Hazelnuts on their own, while tasty, don’t have a ton of flavor. Shocking, I know. The first thing that came to my mind was covering them in melted chocolate so I’d have a makeshift Nutella snack.  Oh well.

To bring out some of their nuttiness, I decided to toast them.

In a small pan over a low flame, toast your ground hazelnuts. They don’t need much time, maybe 2 minutes. You should see them get darker and you’ll definitely smell the nuttiness.

Set aside and go back to your cooled butternut squash.

Using a spoon, scoop out the squash making sure not to take any of the skin with it. Place in a food processor, a blender, or if you’re using your immersion blender, a mixing bowl.

Add 3 tablespoons of toasted, ground hazelnuts, the shallot, fresh Parmesan, chopped garlic, sage, and of course, salt and pepper.

Blend or pulse until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

See? No butter or cream!

To make your ravioli-making experience easier, it would probably be best if you picked up one of these guys:

I make my ravioli by hand, but I’m guessing I’d save a lot of time if I had a mold…

I’ll include a separate post on making pasta dough, but for now let me say the dough I used was perfect. Using a stand mixer to make dough is like a dream come true. No longer will my dining room table (and let’s be honest, the floor too) be covered in flour. No more egg-flour mixture stuck in the crevices of my ring. This makes me oh-so-happy. (I’m sure it makes John happy, too, as he has less to clean up!)

Using a pasta roller or a rolling pin (though this is much harder), roll out your dough to your desired thickness. Here’s my pasta roller:

It’s relatively inexpensive and makes rolling out pasta a breeze. To use, send a piece of dough through the machine on the thickest setting (7 is thickest, 1 is thinnest). Keep sending the dough through the roller, adjusting the thickness as you go. For ravioli, I stop at (3).

Place your dough on a floured surface. Scoop no more than 1 teaspoon of your butternut squash filling on the dough. We’re going to fold one half of the pasta dough over, so you don’t want the filling to be in the middle of the pasta sheet. You want it to be on the bottom half of the pasta. See?

Pour a few tablespoons of water into a small cup. Using your finger, line the edge of each ravioli with water. This will help the pasta seal in the filling and stick together when you fold it over.

Fold the top part of the pasta over your filling.

Stop and smile for the camera.

Resume ravioli-making.

Make sure to press down on the pasta dough between each individual ravioli, and try to remove any air. Once your ravioli are sealed, use a pizza cutter, a ravioli cutter, or even a butter knife to cut into squares.

Et voila!

Freeze your ravioli on a parchment-lined baking sheet. If you place them in a container or plastic bag before freezing them, you will have one large clump of frozen ravioli.

Once they’re frozen, store in a bag until you’re ready to use.

Are you ready to use ‘em?

To prepare, simply boil a pot of water, add a tablespoon of salt, dump your ravioli in, and wait for them to float to the top, about 3 minutes.

For a quick meal, I added the ravioli to a browned butter and sage sauce (a classic combo), threw in a few pieces of chicken, and a side of garlic spinach.

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go make about 50 more ravioli.