Butternut Squash-Porcini Raviolis

With whole wheat pasta dough that I had left over from making spaghetti noodles I decided to take a stab at making raviolis. I’ve made them before, quite successfully using durham flour, but my atttempts at creating a whole wheat ravioli did not go so well. Between the pasta tearing, not sealing properly, and being too gummy once cooked, I felt it was more work that it was worth.

But I had some left-over roasted butternut squash that I had pureed, some ancient dried porcinis that I rehydrated in a mix of white wine and mushroom stock, and the left-over whole wheat pasta dough, which had made a pretty good spaghetti.

I minced the rehydrated porcinis, a little garlic, red onion and parsley and gave them a quick sautee in a skillet before mixing into the butternut squash, along with some ground coriander, cumin, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and pepper. I blended it all together and set it aside while I ran the dough through the roller attachement of my mixer. I ran it through several settings until I got to #6, which is quite thin. The dough had a tendency to get sticky and shred just a little, but I did not want to add anymore flour to it out of concern for making the dough tough and chewy. I rolled out several sheets which I laid on my cutting board. I brushed each sheet with an eggwash and using a small scoop, placed dollops of squash filling in evenly spaced rows on half of the sheets. I took the other half of the sheets and layed them over the fillings, pressing down carefully but thoroughly to push out pockets of air and ensure a firm seal around each bubble of filling. I used my $1.99 Target-brand ravioli cutter to roll and crimp all around the edges of each ravioli, tossing the excess dough and moving each pasta to an oiled plate.

I gently placed the raviolis in batches of three or four into a pot of boiling, lightly salted water. They sank immediately, but within a few moments bobbled to the surface. I counted to twenty and gave each one a turn, then counted to twenty again and eased them out with a spider, careful not to snag or tear the thin pasta. They all cooked up without a single one bursting or disentegrating. I put them in a lightly oiled bowl and held them in the microwave while I quickly made a sage cream sauce sweetened with brown sugar, some sauteed asparagus, onions and tomatoes, and some pan-seared chicken breast.

The texture of the pasta seemed perfect to me, sturdy enough to stand up to being cut and speared with a fork and rubbed in sauce, but thin enough to almost melt away in the mouth and release the rich, earthy flavors of the butternut squash and mushroom. It made for a delicious meal and I hope I remember what I did right with this pasta batch so I can reproduce the recipe the next time I am hankering for home-made whole wheat pastas.