Ed cooks something vegetarian

It's getting a bit one sided here (not a competition).  Coming from a whole week off out of necessity to use up holiday back to working 11-8 is not conducive to much kitchen experimentation.  As good as opening a packet of gnocci and reheating some of the leftover sauce from Zombie Ravioli was, likewise my bastardised Penne all'Amatriciana they neither make for particularly interesting blogging.  Not that such easy to make dishes aren't worthy, but I've perfected the latter to such do-it-in-my-sleep levels that I managed to cook a pretty decent version in a Butlin's chalet during Godspeed You! Black Emperor's recent All Tomorrow's Parties.  And that's really saying something.

I could start running the risk of being typecast as only making pasta with some sort of previously living creature that most people would turn their nose up at eating.  Whilst I'm not going to make any extra effort to resist this I am actually addressing one aspect here, so if you're wanting glands or organs and other pounds of flesh, move along, nothing to see here.  Keen observers of this blog will have noticed that tomorrow (I'm writing this Sunday night) I shall come into possession of two jars of marmalade.  Obviously such a food gift should be reciprocated, and so slipping into my pasta-making role seems a fair exchange.  This is the first ravioli I've made that didn't involve some sort of meat or fish, and so in that respect it's a slight shift outside my relatively deliberately constructed pasta-making comfort zone.  I'm not entirely sure what it was that made me plump for butternut squash as the main ingredient of the filling, but plump I did.  There seems to be an abundance of butternut squash and sage ravioli recipes floating around, and the two go so well together that while I wanted to personalise this a bit it seemed imprudent to separate them.  Roasting garlic renders it soft and sweet, to the extent where you could probably eat an entire bulb, so sits nicely with a sweet squash.  Blanching it beforehand helps to take away some of the bitterness that can sometimes remain.  Pairing these two with a punchy spice in nutmeg and a strong herb in sage should give what could turn out to be a quite dense, sweet filling some life.

For the pasta:
150g strong white plain flour
50g semolina
1 whole large egg
3 large egg yolks (or 4 medium sized yolks)

For the filling:
1 small butternut squash
3 cloves of garlic, skin left on
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Chopped sage leaves
½ tsp grated nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 200°/Gas mark 6.  Put the garlic cloves in a small saucepan of cold water.  Bring to the boil, then replace the water and repeat.  Chop the squash into large chunks.  Place in a roasting tray and cover with the oil and balsamic vinegar and roast in the oven for about half an hour to forty minutes until it is tender and browned slightly.  Remove the tops from the garlic cloves and wrap them in foil and roast them alongside the squash until soft.

Once removed from the oven, remove the skin and cut the squash into smaller pieces and remove the skin from the garlic and mash together.  This may be too moist for the filling, if so cook over a low heat for a few minutes until slightly drier.   Grate in the nutmeg and stir in.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Leave to cool, then stir in the chopped sage. 

I tried Thomas Keller's approach to making dough as I mentioned in my last blog.  It did result in a much stiffer hand than you'd get from just mixing it in a bowl, but also the finished dough was much softer and smoother feeling than every time I've made pasta before.  I have realised that I won't actually be eating any of this, so I won't be able to make a comparison and will just have to rely on Kirsty's assessment of its overall quality.

 
Roll out the pasta to the eighth setting on your machine.  Place heaped teaspoonfuls of the filling onto each sheet of pasta a few centimetres apart.  Brush a little water along one edge of the pasta, and inbetween each bit of filling.  Fold the pasta over and seal around the filling.  It may be easier to cut each ravioli apart before completely sealing to avoid getting any air trapped inside.

On a side note, my pasta machine is now a bit kaput.  This initially happened whilst making the Ravioli Genovese al Tocco the other week.  Something inside has gone, which results in the gap between the rollers becoming uneven as you go through the increments and the pasta going through not straight.  I'd bought the first one I'd found, and until now it had worked fine.  I think now I'll replace it with an Imperia machine as recommended by Theo Randall.  I'm so much of a fan-boy.