Garden Vegetable Ravioli With Tomato Brodo
By: Allison Lemons
Published: Friday, January 8, 2010 - 8:45am

Ingredients




Pasta Dough:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 organic eggs
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Ravioli Stuffing:
2 ears of corn, kernels cut off cobs
4 summer squash, chopped
1 spring onion, dark green parts removed, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1 small head of broccoli, chopped
small handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 package of Laura Chenel’s Chabis goat cheese
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt, fresh ground black pepper
Tomato Brodo:
1 1/2 pounds organic tomatoes, peeled and crushed
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt, fresh ground pepper

Preparation

1 Ravioli Stuffing: Heat up large saute pan and add two swirls of olive oil. Add spring onion and cook for two minutes. Add corn, carrots, squash, broccoli, sea salt and black pepper. Cook on medium-low for 15 minutes, until vegetables are soft. Stir every few minutes so they don’t brown. Add chopped parsley, stir and turn off heat. Let cool for 5 minutes. Empty veggies into a large glass bowl and gently mix in goat cheese until combined. Taste for salt and set aside. 2 Tomato Brodo: Set a medium pot on low heat. Add tomatoes, crushed garlic cloves, 1/2 cup of water, salt and pepper. Cook on low for about 30 minutes. Just before serving, strain broth into a bowl, leaving garlic and tomato seeds behind. 3 Ravioli: Add flour to a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle of flour. Crack eggs into the well. Using your fingers, gently break up the egg yolks as you incorporate the flour, little by little, into the egg mixture. When the dough has not yet come together, add 1 tablespoon olive oil. Continue mixing until the dough forms a mass. Test the consistency by poking your finger into the dough. If your finger emerges caked in dough, add a touch more flour. 4 Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead for 8 minutes. It should feel super smooth when it’s ready. 5 Divide the dough into four equal parts. One by one, guide the dough through the pasta machine, starting at the widest setting, going down to the second-to-last notch. 6 You should now have four long sheets of past dough. Take about 1 1/2 tablespoons of veggie filling, and place it 2 inches from the edge of the dough. Repeat this all along the edge of the sheet, keeping the filling mounds about 2 inches away from each other.  7 Fold the sheet on top of itself, so the filling is now covered. Using a pizza-cutter (or ravioli-cutter if you have one), cut between the filling, creating individual ravioli. Trim the edges to create a straight edge. Repeat with the remaining three sheets of dough. If dough is not sticking together, gently brush edges with an egg wash. 8 Cook the ravioli in boiling water for about two minutes. Strain tomato broth and ladle into a bowl, and  top with ravioli. Garnish with fresh basil.

About


Homemade pasta is an art form. Carefully kneading the dough until it’s velvety smooth. Manually guiding each piece through the pasta machine, as you slowly adjust the thickness, one notch at a time. Whether you cut the sheets into free-falling linguine, layer them in a lasagna pan, or stuff them with soft cheeses, it’s an intimate process that barely changed in over 300 years.
Ravioli are especially artistic because there is no limit to what can be stuffed inside. I vary the ingredients according to what’s in season and available locally. Because of this, although ravioli are traditionally Italian, mine have an undeniable California slant – as yours should reflect the corner of the world you call home. Inside each pocket of fresh dough lies corn, broccoli, summer squash, carrots, spring onions and soft local goat cheese. For the broth, I bought the ripest tomatoes I could find, blanched them to remove the skins, and set them on a slow simmer with a few cloves of garlic. Straining the broth left behind the sweet, tangy goodness that only comes from just-picked, organic tomatoes.
Ricotta cheese is not the staple of ravioli, nor should it be unless you make it yourself or find one of decent quality. Most supermarket brands are a far-cry from the real thing, and will make your dough soggy and weak. This recipe makes about 25 ravioli, so experiment with a couple different fillings. They freeze well too, but don’t let them touch each other, the dough will stick and rip open.