Homemade Summer Harvest Ravioli

I want to start this entry off with an invitation to all of the people that think they know how to cook Italian food, or their great aunt whatshername makes "The best meatballs and gravy ever". The fact is that most Italian dishes are rustic, simple peasant like meals that were made with ingredients that are cheap or easily available. That being said, it is still my favorite style of food to cook. I have had long drawn out discussions with so many people about food from the north, food from the south, the types of tomatoes used, is it sauce or is it gravy? (Sorry folks but cooked tomatoes will always be sauce, If you add some sort of meat to the tomatoes while its cooking then I guess you can call it gravy). The bottom line is, regardless where any of your ancestors are from, good food is the only objective here. (My family comes from Naples, so we know everything lol).

This is a simple recipe for making ravioli and tomato sauce from fresh garden tomatoes (not pre cooked in a can), and some flour and water. The first thing is the "sauce". I found the best way to get the most out of your sauce is to dice up 3 or 4 tomatoes and get them into a pot with two finely chopped garlic cloves and a tablespoon of fresh basil. The next step is a bit of a short cut, but you get the same result faster. Now I have had some of my friends make fun of me for using this product and some that praise it as I do, but for years now I have used the "Magic Bullet" in my kitchen with no issues what so ever. I also have recently been using the "Bullet Express" which is the larger machine that is more like a food processor. Regardless of what you use, now is the time to throw as many tomatoes into your food processor as you can and crush them into a nice thick raw sauce. You can also add any other seasonings into the processor to save some time. I will stick with the herbs and spices I added earlier. Now add your raw sauce into your sauce pot, mix and let it simmer. You can cook out your tomatoes for about one and half hours due to the fact that they are fresh and not pre cooked in a can.

Now comes the fun part... Time to get floury, is floury a word? Anyway, the first thing you need to do, is make sure you have the room or counter space to roll out your dough, or else this could end up taking a real long time. Step 1. Mix your flour with water. Step 2. Chase whoever is near you around the house with your gooey swamp monster from a Scooby Doo cartoon looking hands and howl at them in a ghost like manner... You can skip step 2 if you like. You should mix you flour and water sparingly. If you over work the dough you start to create a higher levels of gluten, and will make your pasta a bit tougher. So the key is to lightly mix the two components together until all the flour is incorporated into the ball of dough. Some of you may have noticed that I never mentioned using eggs in my flour mixture...That's because its a summer ravioli, the egg would make the dough too heavy and dense. So to lighten the noodle you just use water. Out of a five pound bag of flour, I used about half for my dough. That rendered about 200 2 inch ravioli, with a big ball of dough left over (about 100 or more in that ball). That should be more than enough for any family. Now let the dough rest for about twenty minutes, this gives you time to apologize to any one you chased around the house, stir your sauce, have a glass of wine(your gonna need it). Now you can make the filling. The filling that I used for this dish is sticking with the summer theme. It's a mixture of ricotta cheese with grilled chicken, fresh basil, and lemon zest. The chicken should be shredded so it can be incorporated into the cheese without it being too lumpy. Now you can use any form of chicken you want. For this recipe I used two rotisserie chickens. They are easy to work with and have minimal fat, so you can use most of the bird and not have any greasy nastiness affect the filling. You can use both the white meat as well as the dark meat in your cheese mix. Finely dice up 1 cup of fresh basil(you can add some more if you like). The zest of two large lemons and the juice of one half lemon, and mix everything together. Cover and let the mixture set.

Okay,you have your sauce simmering, your cheese filling is mixed and the dough has been resting long enough. So, LETS GET READY TO MAKE RAVIOLI!!! That should wake the dough up a bit. First and foremost... Don't forget your flour. You have to flour everything. Your table, your rolling pin, your hands, your friends, your rolling pin again and again. It is of the utmost importance that the dough does not stick to anything. For years now, I have been using a plastic mold for folding the ravioli. The mold is a circle cutter on the bottom and it bends in half on the top to fold the little dough disc you just cut. These types of plastic cutters/fold and press devices are sold in most cooking stores. I also in the past have done the manual fold over technique, as well as the two sheet method , which is when you roll out a long sheet of dough, set your filling in individual little mounds all over the sheet, salt and water around the mounds...(I will explain the salt and water in a bit). Then roll out another sheet, place it on top of the first sheet and the mounds, manually press around the mounds, use a round cutter, add more salt and water along the edges, use the tines of a fork to further press in the edges of the ravioli and create a design pattern. That my friends is ludicrous. Now I know that before there was any form of advanced cooking technology, this is how it was done, but we live in the modern world, so use your gadgets if you got em. Now I can't tell you where the salt and water concept came from, but that method was taught to me to ensure that the edges of the noodle don't come apart. If you know the two spoon technique, then this will make sense to you. If you don't this might sound stupid, but I will explain it as best I can. The only way to truly understand it, is by trying it. The concept is simple, you use a spoon to scoop up the cheese mixture and use the second spoon to shape the mix into a more rounded mound. This will give an even amount of filling every time. You could also use an ice cream spoon if you are making larger ravioli.
Place the filling closer to one edge as opposed to the center of your disc so its easier to fold. With a small brush or your finger rub a small amount of the salt and water mix around the edge of the disc and fold. PRESTO!!! You just made a ravioli. Now repeat this 199 more times!?!?!?. Now fresh pasta cooks really fast, so make sure your water is boiling, and remember to season your water with salt, pepper, and anything else you want to add...(It's the last chance to give the pasta any flavor of its own before adding the sauce). The ravioli will float to the top of your water in about two to three minutes. Now since we have gone to all the trouble to make ravioli and sauce from scratch, it would be a bloody shame to just dump sauce over the cooked noodles and call it a day, wouldn't it? When you get a pasta dish in a restaurant, it is usually finished in a saute pan. You remove the pasta from the boiling water and place it in a hot pan while adding sauce. This technique is used to marry the flavors of the pasta and the sauce. It completes the dish. Again it would be a shame after all this work to just have an incomplete, lackluster dish, due to skipping what is in my opinion one of the most important steps if not the most important step in this whole process. I finished the dish with some grilled chicken breast, grilled broccoli. You can add any other protein you like.

A little side note ....
I wasn't planing on making this dish at all, when my wife turns to me in the market and asks if I feel like making fresh ravioli. That was at five o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. We ate at at eight thirty that night. It may seem like a long time, but considering the amount of food being made from scratch, I'd say that it was worth it.

This meal may seem a bit overwhelming to someone that has never made fresh pasta before, but the truth is... It takes a lot of time, it is physically demanding, and it can become frustrating for a myriad of reasons, but there is nothing that you can create in your kitchen that is any more rewarding than this meal. Sure it may take some time, but its all worth it when you and your family sit down to eat what you hand crafted for them.

Better late than never "Cedar Plank Salmon"

As per usual, I have been way too busy to write a new entry. But I assure you that I still found time to cook, and that is the point of this blog. I guess when people try to cram to many things into their daily lives we tend to overlook some of the small but important things. That being said I chose this recipe because its a great meal that can be cooked by anyone and also can be found pre prepped in many supermarkets and food stores.

The first step to this dish is the cedar plank. You must use cooking grade cedar that does not have any chemicals or that has been treated in any way. The cedar at Home Depot will probably make you ill if you try to cook with it. The plank should be submerged in water for about an hour so the wood expands a bit and for the water to integrate some moisture into the wood so it wont flame up on the grill...(Your salmon should not look like it's in the fiery depths of hell). I used a two pound fillet of a beautiful North Atlantic Salmon. Now how the salmon is cleaned varies based on personal taste. Some would rather the skin be removed prior to cooking,(If you don't know how to remove the skin properly, your fish monger can do it for you) I prefer to leave the skin on, I feel the skin helps retain a bit of moisture in the meat of the fish and it helps create a fat barrier between the fish and the wood.



Some of the wood will char a bit during the cooking process and will give the fish a great smokey smell. The salmon was rubbed with a mixture of brown sugar and finely chopped garlic, freshly cracked black pepper, the juice of half a lime and a tea spoon of olive oil. Rub both sides of the fish gently, aggressive rubbing might break down the fish too much. Let the fish rest for a few minutes so the rub can do its magic, this gives you time to clean and prepare the asparagus and the mushrooms. The asparagus is grilled, so all you have to do to it is brush it with a little bit of olive oil and some sea salt. The mushrooms are coked in a sauce pan and reduced down into a gravy with some butter, white wine, and shallot's. Pre heat your grill on high for ten minutes then add the salmon, close the lid of your grill and reduce the heat to medium high. If you are using a charcoal grill, move your coals to the back of your grill and place the plank towards the front to even out the temperature. Cook until the temp reaches 130 degrees internally and remove it from the grill, let it rest for about 5 to 7 minutes...(The fish will still be cooking internally for a few minutes, so let it cool down for a bit). While the fish is resting, you can throw the asparagus on the grill for a few minutes. It doesn't take long for them to cook. I finished this dish with some sliced avocado with a little lime juice and a fruit that if you can find it in your local store, you should try it. The New Zealand Red Tamarillo is one of my favorite side dishes for its tartness, color and texture. I choose to use the tamarillo in this dish due to the fact that the fish had a sweet brown sugar glaze and the tamarillo would offset the sweetness in a different way that some citric acid would. After the salmon cools, slice it in two inch pieces. Place a spatula or a thin knife under the fillet and try to remove the fish while leaving the skin behind, it should peel right off. Squeeze some fresh lime juice on top and sprinkle finely chopped parsley over the plate and serve. This is a fun and a not so ordinary type of salmon meal that will certainly impress anyone you are serving it to... Now go cook !!!!

Brown Sugar and Black Pepper Rub.
2/3 of a cup of light brown sugar.
1 1/2 Tbsp of cracked black pepper.
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped .
1/2 Lime (juice only).
1 Tbsp of olive oil .
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk together until the wet ingredients are incorporated into the dry ones, and rub the mixture on the fish. Let the salmon stand with rub on it for at least 5 minutes.

Mushroom Sauce
14 to 16 small to medium size white button mushrooms...(Or two 8oz pre sliced packages will work as well).
1 small shallot finely chopped.
1 cup of white wine.
3 Tbsp of butter.
Rinse and slice the mushrooms, add them to a pan with 1 Tbsp of butter and the shallot. Let the mushrooms sweat out for a few minutes then add the rest of the butter and the wine. Add some fresh parsley, cover and reduce the heat to medium low until the mushrooms reduce into a gravy like consistency.

If anyone has a question on this or any other recipe, please see the comment section on this page .

Thanks
Dan