Olive-stuffed ravioli with fresh spicy tomato sauce
When people stuff pasta with tofu I gag a little bit. I have no problem with tofu, in fact good fresh home-made tofu is one of my favorite things. But with ravioli filling you want a strong taste as well as some texture. In this puree the flesh of the olives, the richness of the almonds, and the fluffiness of the bread come together really well. The key is balancing the flavors: depending on your olives you may want to add a little lemon juice or vinegar to balance the richness. The sauce is just like a Mexican salsa, but you don’t want it to taste that way so don’t use a jalapeno. There are innumerable varieties of chilis and if you have access, I would experiment but you basically want a chili that’s not too spicy and also has a good flavor - padrons are good and add some green, dulces are good, or you can use a nice chile flake, like Aleppo or a nice nice Italian one. This recipe yields enough for about 3 hungry people, but the raviolis also freeze well, so keep that in mind.
For the pasta:
- 200g semolina flour
- 3g salt
- 80g water
- 5g olive oil
Filling:
- ½ cup Oil-cured olives
- 1 ½ cups slivered almonds
- ½ cup fresh torn bread
- ¼ cup packed picked parsley
- ½ cup water
- ½ cup olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Sauce:
- 2 large ripe tomatoes, diced
- 1 small chili, preferably padron, minced
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 teaspoon red wine vinegar
- Salt and pepper to taste
Use a food processor, a Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook, or a large table and your hands. Mix the semolina and salt. Pour in the water and mix until it becomes a firm ball. Keep kneading for a few more minutes until all the flour is incorporated and the dough is hard. Rub the dough with the oil.
Wrap it in plastic wrap and let sit for about 45 minutes. During this time you may want to make the sauce and filling (directions below).
Dust a surface with flour. Roll out large bubblegum-size pieces of the dough as flat as possible using a pasta machine or a rolling pin. Square off your sheets. Then ball the scraps back up and roll them out again. Sprinkle flour over the top of the rolled-out dough and hang it up on your clothes dryer rack from target, or clean shower curtain rod so that they don’t stick to anything as you keep rolling out more.
For the filling:
Puree all the ingredients except the oil together in a food processor. While the machine is running, add the oil. Puree thoroughly, scraping down the sides to make sure that everything is mixed in. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
For the sauce:
Mix everything together in a bowl and let sit. You may want to be careful with the chili if you don’t like things too spicy, maybe start with a half. This is best at room temperature, so leave it sit out while you make everything else.
To construct the pasta, lay your sheets out on a clean, floured work surface. Dollop a teaspoon of filling onto a sheet in regular intervals, leaving a little more room than you would think is necessary. Take another sheet and lay it gently over top the first. Press down in between the dollops of stuffing to seal the filling in. with a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut out squares. Make sure they’re sealed by pinching the outsides. You can stop here and leave them as ravioli or you can continue to make a more intricate shape that, in my opinion, shows off the pasta a little bit more. Turn over your ravioli so that it is sitting on the bulge. Fold up two opposite corners and pinch them together to seal them. Then do the same with the other two corners. it’s sorta like a backwards tortolloni, but i don’t know what it would be called, i was just messing around and i sorta liked it.
To finish:
Bring a large pot of water, with lots of salt, to a light boil. Drop in your raviolis and let them cook for a minute and a half or so. Italian ladies used to repeat different church prayers or hymns to count off the correct time for boiling different kinds of pastas, so i recommend memorizing your favorite Mao Zedong quote and repeating it for the appropriate amount of time. You can also check them by poking them in their centers with a cake tester and touching that to your lip. If it’s warm, you’re ready! With a slotted spoon, fish out your pasta and lay them in bowls. Spoon your tomato mix into the center of the bowls. Eat.
