Butternut Squash Ravioli with Sage Butter Sauce

With a bit of free time to spare this weekend, some quality time was spent with the pasta machine :) The thing with fresh pasta is that its actually quite easy to do, takes no time to cook, quite filling and can be very tasty in the right hands! This weekend's fresh pasta is stuffed, in the form of a ravioli. (I believe that the difference in the names, btw, of the stuffed pastas like tortellini, tortelli, pansotti, etc. Check them out here)

The stuffing is made of butternut squash, roasted in the oven and then mashed and mixed with parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs and flavored with fresh sage.

To make fresh pasta, check out this previous post. However, since this is a ravioli, we would have to cut the pasta accordingly.

proportions : 1 cup Tipo 00 flour, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon oil (spanish olive oil in this instance), pinch of salt

To make the stuffing you will need:

1 medium sized butternut squash
handful of parmesan cheese
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 egg
2 teaspoons minced fresh sage
2 green cayenne chillis, minced
salt and pepper, olive oil to taste

Cut butternut squash lengthwise and season with a bit of salt, pepper and olive oil then bake in 180C oven for around 45 minutes or until the flesh is soft (for some reason i just chucked it into the oven without even taking the seeds off - easier when its softer anyway!). Spoon flesh into a sieve (for extra smoothness). Add breadcrumbs, cheese, egg, chili (optional), salt and pepper and mix until well combined. The mixture should be quite dry so that the pasta will not weigh down and get mushy with excess moisture.

After making your pasta paper thin at the smallest setting of your pasta machine, keep them in tea towels and sprinkle with a bit more flour, so they don't dry out.

Place heaped teaspoons of the stuffing, spaced adequately.

With a wet finger draw a border on the sides of the fillings. This is to help seal the pasta. Place the other sheet of pasta on top of the fillings, and cut with either a knife or a fancy serrated roller if you have one (ahem).

make sure to remove little pockets of air to seal the stuffing

post cutting photo pose

Boil the ravioli in salted water until it floats on top, and if it is made within the hour of making the pasta it would only take about a minute or two. Drain excess water and top with sauce.

Sauce :
knob of butter
10 small sage leaves
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Heat olive oil and butter in a small frying pan until the butter is melted and has slightly changed color. Fry sage leaves until crisp, remove and top ravioli with leaves and butter-oil mixture. Serve immediately!!!!

eat me!