Swiss Chard & Potato Ravioli

I love cooking this time of year.  The weather has cooled to the point where spending a Sunday afternoon in the kitchen feels so right.  My head (and belly) start thinking about cooking projects, the kind of cooking I don’t do in the summer.  I’m thinking homemade pasta, got to roll out a batch of pasta.

This time around, I made ravioli filled with Swiss chard and potatoes, dressed with a super simple, super fresh tomato sauce.  It satisfied my need to spend the afternoon wearing a sweater and fussing in the kitchen, but the end product still tasted summery and much lighter than you’d imagine for potato-stuffed pasta–in other words, a good dinner to help us transition from summer to fall.

No time to waste; we’ve got a project ahead of us.  We’ll start by mixing up a batch of pasta dough.  Sift flour into a bowl or make a volcano on your countertop.  Beat a few eggs with olive oil and water then pour into the flour.

Use a fork to combine wet and dry…

…until you’ve formed a scruffy looking ball of dough.

Turn it out and knead until smooth and elastic.  Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest while you tackle the ravioli filling and sauce.

We’re stuffing our ravioli with garlicky Swiss chard and potatoes.  Basically, we’re sticking one of my favorite side dishes between pasta sheets.  If the carb on carb thing seems weird, just think about how well it works in pierogi or that tiella I made a while back.

Blanch a big bunch of Swiss chard, boil and peel a couple of potatoes, and chop some garlic.  It’s amazing how small a giant bouquet of chard becomes.

Sauté the garlic in olive oil with a pinch of red pepper ’til it’s fragrant.  Add the chard followed by the potatoes and smash with the back of a spoon.  Let it cool while you get your tomato sauce working.

I’m taking advantage of summer tomatoes before it’s too late and making a really simple, fresh tasting sauce.  I think it’s important to keep sauces for filled pasta pretty simple; you don’t want a powerful sauce to take center stage while all the hard work that goes into forming ravioli gets forgotten.

Peel a bunch of tomatoes.  I used 10, but I also had extra sauce.  6 or 8 should do, but I like to overshoot and save any extras for dinner later in the week.

I don’t quite remember when I learned to properly peel a tomato, I just remember being amazed.  You just cut an X on the bottom and dip it into boiling water for 30 seconds or so.  Pull it out and the peel slips right off.  Cool!

Core the tomatoes, remove the seeds, and finely chop.  Heat a couple of tablespoons of butter or olive oil and sweat a couple of halved onions and a few smashed garlic cloves.  We’ll take those out later, we just want them to subtly flavor our tomatoes.

Add the tomatoes and let the sauce bubble while you shape the ravioli.

Divide the dough in 6 pieces and pass each through a pasta roller, starting at the thickest setting and gradually working your way down to the thinnest.  Lay the pasta sheets out on a floured towel until you’ve rolled them all and you are ready to start assembling the ravioli.  Place 1/2-1 tablespoon mounds of filling, 2 inches apart on a sheet of pasta.  Dip your finger in a bowl of water and outline a square around each mound of filling.  Place another sheet of pasta over the top and press to seal.  Cut into squares with a knife or rotary ravioli cutter and place on a floured towel until you’ve finished forming them all.

Boil the ravioli in batches in a big pot of salted water until they’re floating on the surface and thoroughly cooked.  Transfer them to the sauce.  Divide between warm plates and dust with grated Parmesan.

I love this kind of late summer/early fall eating.  It’s on the light end of hearty, it feels good to back into “project” cooking, and the weather is just right for an after dinner stroll.  Happy weekend!

 

 .

 

Google+