Potato Ravioli in Beef Velouté

And speaking of (dis)claiming, I should mention that I don’t believe this is a legitimate velouté, as not only did I not make it with a white stock, I don’t think I even cooked it according to standard. It’s sort of, kind of a cross between a velouté and an Espagnole sauce, I think. But really, all fanciness aside in the interest of honesty, it’s a thin beef gravy. That said, doesn’t velouté sound so much better?

OK, first off your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to whip up some fresh pasta. I took a pasta class with Chef Bob at Harmon’s on Friday that taught me how to do this, and hopefully I can impart my learning in an understandable way.

Pasta Dough

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup durum wheat semolina
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 eggs*

Place flour and salt in a mound on the table and make a good sized well with your fingers or a spoon or something. Add your olive oil and eggs in the well and scramble the eggs with a fork, and then gradually start working the flour in by scraping along the edges of the well. You are looking for a stiff but moist dough, and it may take you a while to get there, but you will get there. Gradually adding the flour is important – depending on the dryness of the flour and your atmospheric conditions (humid climate, dry climate) you may need less flour to accomplish the right dough, and it’s a lot easier to add more flour to a too-wet dough than to add more moisture to a too-dry dough. Knead until smooth and let your dough rest, at least 15 minutes and up to 24 hours.

*fun egg fact: eggs are classified by weight, so a jumbo egg may be the same visual size as a large egg, but will be heavier. this is especially important in baking but until you need 3 or more eggs in a recipe they are mostly interchangeable.

Things I learned about dough from Chef Bob:

-Patience, young padawan. It does take time for the dough to come together.
-If it’s sticky, it needs more flour so add it in small increments until it’s moist but not sticky. Such a thing does exist, I swear.

-Odds are that if you think it isn’t right, it’s probably right. I thought my dough was wrong, that it was too dry and not pliable enough, but after it had rested it softened up and was great to work with.

While your dough is resting, let’s start on the filling.

Potato Filling

from Mario Batali.

4 russet potatoes, peeled
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/2 cup chopped chives plus 4 tablespoons
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

I was using leftover dough and so halved this recipe, with the exception of the chives. I did not have fresh chives on hand and felt that even 1/4 cup of dried chives was an awful lot. 1/2 cup of dried chives would basically be an entire bottle and that is just insane. I also did not use nutmeg here because I forgot. Remembering things is hard.

Boil up those potatoes – do yourself a favor and either leave them whole or cut them in half or large quarters. I failed to remember that they needed to be peeled until after I had already cut them in a large dice. I suppose you could always be practical and peel them before cooking, but where’s the adventure in that? Anyway, it’ll take something like 30-40 minutes for the potatoes to be done, then drain (and peel if you need to) , mash up as smooth as you can get it and then add the grated cheese, chives, eggs and nutmeg and mash/stir to combine.

Here’s where it gets fun, as we now need to roll out the pasta dough to make the ravioli. If you are fortunate enough to have a pasta roller, this will be a piece of cake, just take half your dough and shape it into a rough cylinder, then press through on the first setting. Fold in half along the vertical and press through on the second setting. Fold in half and press through on the third setting, so on an so forth through the seventh setting, though at some point you may want to fold in thirds along the vertical if it’s getting too wide. Repeat with the second half of the dough.

For the rest of us schlubs, break out that rolling pin and a lightly floured surface, we’ve got a workout ahead of us. Much like the above, go ahead and shape the dough into a cylinder. Roll to the north, roll to the south, always starting in the center. Repeat and then rotate your dough. Keep this pattern up until your dough is in a circle a bit larger than your rolling pin and quite thin, and then fold the sides in to make a strip. Now we’re going to elongate and thin the dough even more, so we’re only rolling vertical with no rotations. I found this easiest to do in sections, you may want to gently fold 2/3 of the dough at the top of your work surface and weigh it down just a little (i used my bench scraper, aka this thing -ps, it’s cheaper at Target) otherwise your dough will just slide down and not work the way you want. You need this dough to be thin – it should be at least a little bit transparent. It’ll plump up considerably when it hits the water. Continue until you have a long strip, probably a rough 3 or so inches wide, and then repeat the whole tedious process with the second half of the dough. You’ll want one strip longer than the other, that will be your top strip.

Once your dough is rolled out, start adding your filling – roughly a tablespoon, but you should be fine just eyeballing it – on the shorter strip of pasta. Give yourself some room between each, about an inch or so, so there’s room to seal it off. When you’re done, grab an egg and beat it in a bowl, grab a pastry brush, basting brush, cotton ball, something, and prepare for formation.

You need to work quickly here – taking your egg application tool of choice in hand, brush said egg along the top and bottom edges of the dough and between each mound of filling. Get your longer strip of pasta and drop it on top. Press down along the top edge of the pasta, then between each mound. Gently form dough around the filling, removing as much air as possible, then seal the bottom edge. Should look like this:

Technically your pasta should not have wrinkles in it, but it certainly did not detract from the flavor so haters can go ahead and move right on to the left. Now we just need to separate each ravioli, so grab a knife or if you have one of those fancy pastry wheels (which will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine) and cut around like so:

Feel free to go ahead and make sure there are no openings along the edges, our goal is for the potatoes to be filling, not sauce. And speaking of sauce, put your water on to boil for the pasta and add a good amount of salt. Fun fact: not only does salting the water flavor it, it raises the boiling point – but not enough to make any difference.

We’re now on to our pseudo-velouté. Here’s a list of what you’ll need, but these are estimates because I was just winging it. (I know! I never do that, but I was living dangerously!)

Beef Velouté (or should it be Boeuf Velouté?)

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
1 shallot, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 cups beef broth/stock
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp rosemary
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Pepper to taste
Water as needed
4 Tbsp or 1/4 c butter
4 Tbsp or 1/4 c flour

Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. When oil is hot (it will have thinned out and be shimmery) add the butter. When butter is melted, add garlic and shallot and cook, stirring frequently, until softened but not browned.

Did you know sauté is French for "to jump"? Now you do.

Add stock and spices and bring back up to a simmer. At this point, go ahead and put your ravioli in the water. In a separate pan, melt the 1/4 c butter. Once melted, add your flour to make a roux, whisking to combine and smooth. Cook for another 30 seconds (this removes the flour taste) and remove from heat. Whisk roux into the simmering broth until lumps are gone and sauce is thickened.

We’re aiming for a saucy consistency, so add water as needed. We want it to lightly coat the back of a spoon – it should fall off in a light stream, if it falls off in large drips, it’s too thick.

Check your ravioli – pull a piece out and cut off a corner. If you can see a thin white line, give it another minute. If you can’t, it’s done. Using a slotted spoon, retrieve and plate your ravioli and add sauce. If you’re feeling fancy, chiffonade some fresh basil and sprinkle on top to make it look all pretty or whatever, and if you do make it, tell me what you think.