In the Kitchen with Jennifer
I am lucky to be surrounded by creative people every day. My friend Jennifer is no exception. Jenn is a talented, diverse Home Economics educator that I have had the pleasure of calling friend for the past 15 plus years. We bonded over a mutual love of food and fine dining and whenever I am at a loss with a recipe or need a go to person to make a dessert for a gathering she’s my guy. Our 10 am teatime at school became a habit that carries on in my department to this day and we have shared hundreds of foodie adventures over the years. We have hosted pasta making nights together, made copious amounts of cheesecake to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday, attended celebrity chef events in town, traveled to Portland and the Okanagan for beer and wine tours and have dined out more than I like to admit. We are definitely a food couple.
I still recall our first real bonding experience. Professional Development days are a regular part of the school year schedule. We are inundated with pedagogy and best practice workshops and often the day is full of dry speakers and equally dry material. As luck would have it, one year we had an administrator who was a bit more open to what constituted professional development and suggested that we should do some department sharing and workshops, to showcase what each department was all about and maybe learn a little something new in the mean time. Jenn emailed out to staff that she was going to run a pasta making workshop where participants would create ravioli from scratch and then lunch on the product of the morning’s process. She had me at ravioli! The day was a hit and became the start of a beautiful, food filled friendship. The recipes and methods that follow were the ones she shared with us that day, long ago. And the lady herself will be guiding me through the process once again.
Goat Cheese & Fresh Herb Ravioli with Asparagus and Brown Butter
For the Filling:
- 1lb (454g) fresh goat cheese, at room temperature
- 1/2 tsp (2ml)finely chopped garlic
- 1 Tbsp (15ml) dry white wine
- 2 tsp (10ml) extra virgin olive oil
- grated zest of one lemon
- 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh herbs ( try any combination of flat leaf parsley, tarragon, chervil, cilantro, thyme, basil, chives or mint)
- 1 Tbsp (15ml) fine fresh breadcrumbs
- salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Put the goat cheese in a mixing bowl. Add the garlic, white wine, olive oil and lemon zest. Mix the ingredients together with a rubber spatula. Stir in the chopped herbs and bread crumbs. Season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate until ready to use.
I always suggest using a wine great enough to drink to cook with. What is this “cooking wine” nonesense?! At this point, the wine is open and it is certainly time to pour a glass before we carry on. Cooking together is fun and we usually make an event of it. And great wine, beer or cocktails are part of a great dining experience. I’m not the biggest fan of white wine, I prefer a big, meaty red, with lots of fruit forward mouth feel. However, this pasta needs a nice, crisp, dry white. Our group of gals are partial to pinot grigio but, pick your poison, as long as it’s crisp and dry.
Ravioli Dough: Yields 1 lb
- 4 Cups (1000 ml) unbleached all-purpose flour
- 4 large eggs
- 1 tsp (5ml) extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp (2ml) course salt
- Dump the flour in a pile on a work surface. Make a deep well in the center and pour in the eggs, olive oil and salt.
- Begin mixing the eggs with a fork, staying in the center and taking care not to break the flour wall.
- Little by little, mix incorporate the flour from the sides and mixing it into the beaten eggs until the dough starts to move as a unit and becomes too stiff to mix with the fork.
- When it no longer easily absorbs the flour, set the dough aside; scrape up the remaining flour and sieve out any dried bits of dough. Save one to two cups of the sifted flour to use on the work surface to use during kneading, if necessary.
- Knead the dough on a lightly fliured surface until it is a smooth homogenous ball of dough, approximately 5 minutes; it should no longer stick to the work surface.
- Wrap the dough loosely in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 8 hours.
My suggestion would be to make the dough first, due to the time required for it to rest. Then, tidy your space, making dough is a messy undertaking, pour some more wine and relax, talk, laugh and visit. Then, make the goat cheese mixture and get ready to roll out that dough and get it in the pasta machine. The really fun part starts now!
Cooking with friends and loved ones is one of the best things in the world, in my opinion. In this case, three of my best girls, sisters every one (including my biological one), a great meal underway and a couple bottles of good wine! Good food, good drink and great company! You can’t go wrong with this recipe for a great night.
Once the dough has chilled sufficiently, roll out the pasta dough using a pasta machine. This takes some time and energy, as the dough needs to be the correct thickness to fill the raviolis. It can’t be overworked too much, either, you want a nice tender pasta. Mama Jenn watched over her flock of newbies here and Lori has great success with her deft touch…and, as always, Cheryl had her own technique for creating both pasta and laughter.
Seriously…what is going on here?!
Once the pasta has been rolled out to a proper thickness, fill the dough with the filling. We used a ravioli press for making our raviolis. It was very handy and allowed us to get a very uniform product simply and easily. They can be purchased on Amazon for a reasonable price and they make forming the pasta so effortless. Be careful not to overfill the pasta, you don’t want them to burst when they hit the water later on in the process. Seal the pasta with a wash of beaten egg yolk and make sure that the ends are fully sealed by pinching lightly.
Lay the ravioli on a pan lined with wax paper and sprinkle with corn meal. Do not let them touch, they will want to stick together. You can refrigerate them for up to a day or freeze them, wrapped, for up to a month. We made enough to have our group dinner as well as freeze and take home a serving each to enjoy at a later date. They freeze well and it is a beautiful thing to pull out some freshly made pasta on a Friday night and enjoy with a glass of wine and a good movie!
