Ever since our last cooking class with Casey Schanen, I’ve been thinking fondly of his ravioli stuffed with fresh peas and feta, served in a lemon beurre blanc. We received a ravioli making kit for Christmas, and fresh shelling peas just appeared in the market. Our choice for Sunday dinner was clear.

For the filling, I wanted to use Gothberg Farms fresh chevre, because I am still newly in love with this cheese and I want to use it in everything. This particular ball of cheese had a distinctly grassy note entwined with its sweet milkiness. It seemed made to go with peas.

First, we shelled our peas. I blanched them in boiling water for two minutes, then drained and cooled them. I set aside a few peas to go on top of the ravioli, but mashed the rest lightly with a spoon before adding the goat cheese along with some salt and pepper. In retrospect, a little lemon zest would have been nice as well. And perhaps a little chopped fresh mint. Next time…

I made a small amount of pasta dough with one egg and about equal parts unbleached flour and semolina flour. The ravioli mold is exactly the width of a sheet of pasta made from our hand-crank machine, so we had some fun trying to get the dough to come out full width. The mold worked great, though – you lay a sheet on the bottom mold, then press it down with the top piece to create hollows for the filling. Then you lay another pasta sheet on top and roll over it with a rolling pin to seal and cut the edges. Very easy, and makes much prettier ravioli than the ones I’ve done by hand.

The finished ravioli went into the pot of boiling salted water, inflated beautifully and danced around for five minutes (not a single one leaked, yay!). I fished them out carefully and dressed them with hot butter, peas, parsley and tarragon. A sprinkle of coarse salt at the end made it perfect.

With small filets of pan-seared sockeye salmon and an incredible Cabernet Franc rosé from Chinook Winery, this made a beautiful spring supper.

Last week at Gretchen’s we helped out with a class on Chinese cooking. Presented by Huiming Hsiao, the daughter of Taiwanese restauranteurs, the food was heavy on the pork, light on the vegetables, and extremely yummy. I’m hardly going to complain about too much pork. Besides, there was also chicken and shrimp.

Most of the food was served at once, but we started the guests off with a curried chicken skewer. Huiming brought the boneless chicken thighs pre-marinated in a lively blend of star anise, Sichuan pepper and curry, and all we had to do was skewer them and stick them in the oven.

Once the skewering was under way, I got put to work making dumplings. The filling was a simple mixture of ground pork and a prebagged slaw that I zizzed up in the food processor with fresh scallions, plus a few seasonings. Huiming showed me her technique for filling and sealing, which worked quite well once I got the hang of it. I tried using the little plastic dumpling press but it outsmarted me and refused to seal the dumpling skins.

We made a lot of dumplings.

The way the dumplings were cooked surprised me: first sizzled in an electric griddle with just a bit of oil, then steamed in water mixed with potato starch. The starch had the effect of coating the bottoms of the dumplings and creating a fabulously crispy coating. Huiming admitted that this was a “cheating” sort of trick, but really effective.

To go with the dumplings, there was a fried rice with bacon and shrimp, then a simple egg-flower soup with meatballs made from the leftover pork dumpling filling. And an extra chicken skewer.

One of the perks of volunteering in the demo kitchen is occasionally getting some leftovers to take home. We had some rather successful meals off of this class, including fried eggs over fried rice, dumplings floating in soup with lots of green onion, and a totally experimental but strangely successful dish of Chinese egg noodles bound together with a garlic-lebni sauce and studded with frozen spinach and shredded curry chicken.

Like the regular, cheese-filled khachapuri that I usually make, this bean-filled variation is from the book Flatbreads & Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (I’ve only recently discovered Naomi’s evocative personal blog - check it out, it’s wonderful).

I’ve raved about this cookbook repeatedly on this blog (do you have a copy yet? If not, why not?) The only thing I wish is that the first edition had been bound more effectively, because my copy is completely shot. You can tell it’s been well-loved. It’s the only place I’ve found recipes for Georgian food, which is a wonderful savory cuisine full of walnuts, cheese, pomegranates and herbs.

I love cheese-filled khachapuri so much that it was hard to make myself try something new, but I’m glad I made the effort. What I really like about the bean filling is that it really highlights the flavor of the bread, which is very tender and tart. Full of protein from both beans and yogurt, it makes a great vegetarian meal. I made a quick pureed spinach soup to dip the breads in, but a sharp green salad would also be good alongside.

The dough (I give the recipe and technique in this post) is very quick to make, like a biscuit dough. It’s soft enough that it can be a little tricky to work with, so have plenty of flour on hand while you’re rolling out the individual breads.

The basic filling is just cooked red beans (I used canned azuki beans, but any would do), seasoned with salt, a little garlic and some chopped fresh cilantro. I added in a small sweet onion, sauteed until it began to turn golden. I’ve also seen a recommendation of some grated carrot, but I haven’t tried it yet.

By the way, these are really good rewarmed for breakfast. You can even break them in half and stuff fried or scrambled eggs inside, like a pita pocket.

Hmm…what else would be good inside a khachapuri? I’m thinking sausage…

“Maybe I should have started with linguine instead of ravioli.” I was trying to remember how to make pasta, and beginning to wonder if, instead of pumpkin ravioli, our Halloween dinner was going to consist of pasta shreds with mashed pumpkin on top. Fortunately for us, and for those of you looking at the photos of our final product, it did finally come out.

I used to make ravioli and other filled pastas, back when I was young and unemployed and had more time in the kitchen, but it had definitely been a while. And I never did get the hang of squash-filled pastas – it seemed like I always overfilled them or the filling was too watery, and the pastas always self-destructed in the pot. I’m happy to report, though, that this recipe (from Mario Batali’s Babbo Cookbook) worked beautifully. I only had to wad up the pasta scraps and reroll them once! And the pumpkin didn’t cook evenly, so we ran it through the cuisinart to get rid of the hard chunks. But the result was very, very delicious. I did skip the amaretti cookies on top, though, because that just sounded disgusting.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Sage Butter

adapted from The Babbo Cookbook by Mario Batali

Pasta Dough:

• 1 1/2 cups white flour
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp olive oil

Pumpkin Filling:

• 1 small pumpkin
• olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano
• 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
• 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• salt and pepper

To Finish:

• 1/2 stick butter
• 6 fresh sage leaves
• coarse salt or fleur de sel

Mix up the pasta dough a little ahead of time. Pile the flour on the counter or on a large wooden board, and make a well in the center. Break the eggs into the well and add the olive oil. Mix the eggs and oil together with a fork, then gradually incorporate the flour from the sides until you have a firm, slightly sticky, resilient dough. Knead for a few minutes until smooth, then wrap it up in plastic wrap and set aside.

Cut the pumpkin in half, scoop it clean, rub with olive oil and roast at 350° until soft, about half an hour.

Scoop out the flesh into a bowl (or food processor if it seems extra chunky). Add the cheese, nutmeg, vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir well.

Run the dough through a pasta machine until it is very thin (we only made it to number 4 on our machine before the dough started to tear, and it worked fine – but thinner is always better if you can manage it). Use a biscuit cutter to cut rounds from the pasta sheet.

Put a small spoonful of filling on a round, then cap with another round and seal the edges. Set the filled ravioli on a baking sheet.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and add salt. Drop in the ravioli and cook for 2 minutes. In the meantime, put a large skillet over medium heat and add the butter. When it melts and foams, whisk in a little of the pasta cooking water, then add the sage leaves. When the ravioli are cooked, drain them and put them directly into the sage butter and stir them gently to coat. Sprinkle with a bit of fleur de sel or other coarse salt.

Eat immediately. We can recommend the pairing of Uli’s mild Italian sausage with these, and Cusumano Nero d’Avola from Sicily. And Halloween candy to follow.

A while back I mentioned a batch of khachapuri that I had made, but I didn’t go into detail about them because I was seriously distracted by the gougères I was making at the same time. Last week I made them again, though, so I thought I’d do some fuller coverage.

Khachapuri are cheese-and-egg filled flatbreads from the Republic of Georgia. The bread itself is a yogurt and white flour dough which is very simple to make and very tasty as well. The variety I always make are the “emeruli khachapuri” out of Flatbreads and Flavors; the book has some variations stuffed with red beans or potatoes, but I haven’t really branched out yet – these are too good.

emeruli khachapuri

from Flatbreads & Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

The full recipe makes 8 flatbreads. The breads are very filling, so I usually just make a half batch, which works fine. Leftovers are tasty for breakfast, too.

for the dough:

• 3 to 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups plain yogurt

for the filling:

• 4 oz cheddar or mozzarella cheese, finely grated
• 2 oz feta cheese, crumbled
• 2 Tbsp plain yogurt
• 1 egg

Preheat the oven to 450°. Have two baking sheets lined with parchment and standing by (I always forget to use parchment, and the filling leaks out and sticks impressively). 

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt, then add the yogurt and stir it up well. Keep adding flour until the dough firms up enough to knead. Turn it out onto the counter and knead for a few minutes. The dough should be soft and springy.

Mix up your filling in a small bowl. I find that you can get away with a lot of different proportions and types of cheese, so don’t worry about exact measurements. You could add fresh herbs as well, especially parsley or cilantro…

Cut your dough into 8 equal pieces. Roll out a piece into a thin circle, leaving a little bit of thicker dough in the middle (helps keep the bread from splitting during baking). Drop a dollop of filling on (a tablespoon’s worth or a bit more). Pleat up the edges of the dough over the filling, twist them together and press them down. You are trying to seal the dough and spread the filling around inside so there is cheese and egg throughout the bread. Try to get it as thin as possible, too – the book says to aim for 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick, but I have trouble getting it that thin without gooshing egg all over the place.

Flip the bread and set it on a baking sheet so that the pleated part is underneath. You should have a smooth, flat, round bread.

Shape and fill three more breads and get the pan in the oven. You can shape the rest of the breads while they bake. They only take 5-10 minutes to cook; keep an eye on the breads in the oven and take them out when they are lightly golden with a few brown spots. Don’t worry if they leak a bit, it makes them a little messier to eat but still delicious.

Toss the breads in a basket with a towel to keep them warm while you finish baking. Serve with sharply flavored food – the yogurt dough is very comfortingly bland against spicy or acidic flavors. We had these with a batch of lamb meatballs with sour cherry sauce, which was a perfect match. And be careful when eating - the filling is blazingly hot and will take the skin right off the roof of your mouth.