The CookingBites Cookalong: Ravioli

For some reason I forgot to post the finished Ravioli with spinach and ricotta dish in this thread. I think I posted it in 'What did you cook/eat today?'. Here it is:

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Crab and caviar ravioli with lemon & tarragon butter, served with seared asparagus:

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I remember now why I don't make fresh pasta very often. I was impatient with the pasta dough - it seemed too dry so I added an extra egg. Big mistake, flour everywhere and it still stuck to everything in sight. I should have worked it more. The pasta machine may come clean for Xmas.

Taste wise, it was OK, but the filling was underwhelming. I used crab meat from the claw - white meat, but it would have been better with some brown meat added for better flavour. My ravioli cutter worked a treat though - cut and sealed in one go.

I have some dough left - if I have time I will attempt something more adventurous over the weekend.
 
epicuric said:
Crab and caviar ravioli with lemon & tarragon butter, served with seared asparagus:

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I remember now why I don't make fresh pasta very often. I was impatient with the pasta dough - it seemed too dry so I added an extra egg. Big mistake, flour everywhere and it still stuck to everything in sight. I should have worked it more. The pasta machine may come clean for Xmas.

Taste wise, it was OK, but the filling was underwhelming. I used crab meat from the claw - white meat, but it would have been better with some brown meat added for better flavour. My ravioli cutter worked a treat though - cut and sealed in one go.

I have some dough left - if I have time I will attempt something more adventurous over the weekend.
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That looks absolutely amazing great! Crab and caviar - two of my favourite ingredients. So how did you make the filling - are you saying you mixed crabmeat and caviar together? I've never heard of doing that. Your pasta looks quite brownish in colour compared to mine (that is not a criticism). Is it just the light?
 
I've been using crabmeat too and making squid ink pasta. I had trouble with sticky dough so added more flour. Perhaps it was because of the squid ink. I had to use semolina to roll out the pasta as it just stuck otherwise - but so far so good. The filling is white crabmeat, lemon zest, chilli and a little ricotta to bind.

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And here they are filled:

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morning glory said:
That looks absolutely amazing great! Crab and caviar - two of my favourite ingredients. So how did you make the filling - are you saying you mixed crabmeat and caviar together? I've never heard of doing that. Your pasta looks quite brownish in colour compared to mine (that is not a criticism). Is it just the light?
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Yes, mixed the claw meat and lumpfish caviar, along with a little molten butter to bind it. An original idea! But it didn't taste as good as I had hoped. The photo is not good - the pasta was more yellow (3 x Cotswold legbar eggs per 200g of 00 flour) than the photo suggests.
 
epicuric said:
Yes, mixed the claw meat and lumpfish caviar, along with a little molten butter to bind it. An original idea! But it didn't taste as good as I had hoped. The photo is not good - the pasta was more yellow (3 x Cotswold legbar eggs per 200g of 00 flour) than the photo suggests.
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Well if you used Cotswold Legbar then your pasta would be nearly as yellow as mine. I'll see if I can tweak the photo... its a good photo. :okay:
 
Re mixing caviar with crab - I must admit it strikes me as wrong. I'm not quite sure why. One reason may be that I've never seen any recipes where caviar is mixed with anything else - it is used in combination but not mixed in. But there is another reason I felt it wrong - and I can't quite put my finger on it. Something to do with texture perhaps. And the saltiness of caviar which needs to be 'stand alone' - it would kill off the crab taste I think, if mixed in.
 
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morning glory said:
Re mixing caviar with crab - I must admit it strikes me as wrong. I'm not quite sure why. One reason may be that I've never seen any recipes where caviar is mixed with anything else - it is used in combination but not mixed in. But there is another reason I felt it wrong - and I can't quite put my finger on it. Something to do with texture perhaps. And the saltiness of caviar which needs to be 'stand alone' - it would kill off the crab taste I think, if mixed in.
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That is the effect I was looking for - little explosions of saltiness to counteract the richness of the crab, but it didn't work. Maybe I didn't use enough caviar, and the absence of brown crab meat made the whole thing rather bland. Back to the drawing board.
 
I'm not really happy with my squid rav either - the problem is the semolina I used to roll it out which produced a grainy surface. This somehow didn't matter so much with the plain flour raviolis. I think I need to use finer semolina or flour. They tasted great though. I have some dough left so may try again.

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epicuric said:
Crab and caviar ravioli with lemon & tarragon butter, served with seared asparagus:
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Well, it seems to me @epicuric, whatever the flaws in execution, the fundamental idea behind your ravioli was excellent. I mean, I have no particular opinion with regard to caviar. I haven’t had it very often, and when I have had it, it has been in restaurants, as a small spoonful placed on top of a dish where other ingredients have been the key to the dish, if you see what I mean. But I think seafood filled ravioli is a fundamentally winning idea. And that is the whole thing with ravioli; yes, there is the question of how good the pasta is, and the technical difficulty of making well-formed and neat ravioli. But then there is also the matter of making a great filling and a great sauce to go with it. And then, as with any dish, the final presentation, and I think your dish is wonderfully presented. Making really good ravioli remains a skill I would like to try to develop and I think it goes in those stages. First, well I suppose first is to learn to make good pasta, and I would urge you not to give up on that, it absolutely is one of those things you will fairly naturally get good at when you have done it a few times. But then it is about learning to form good looking ravioli that stay sealed while you cook them. Then you come to the search for great fillings and great sauces. And I suppose the final thing is the presentation, but if you have got over all of the other hurdles, then that shouldn’t be so much of a challenge.
 
Ken Natton said:
First, well I suppose first is to learn to make good pasta, and I would urge you not to give up on that, it absolutely is one of those things you will fairly naturally get good at when you have done it a few times. But then it is about learning to form good looking ravioli that stay sealed while you cook them. Then you come to the search for great fillings and great sauces. And I suppose the final thing is the presentation, but if you have got over all of the other hurdles, then that shouldn’t be so much of a challenge.
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Seems to me that @epicuric has the technique pretty well perfected! I love the way his ravioli is filled right to the edges but hasn't burst open. @epicuric can you clarify the method for using your cutter. - the stages you went through - when did you apply the egg wash 'glue'? You are using your cutter differently from me. I am cutting the shapes first then filling and glueing the two halves together.

@Ken Natton, what method are you using?

And @The Late Night Gourmet can you tell us how you cut it and shape it?
 
Ken Natton said:
Well, it seems to me @epicuric, whatever the flaws in execution, the fundamental idea behind your ravioli was excellent. I mean, I have no particular opinion with regard to caviar. I haven’t had it very often, and when I have had it, it has been in restaurants, as a small spoonful placed on top of a dish where other ingredients have been the key to the dish, if you see what I mean. But I think seafood filled ravioli is a fundamentally winning idea. And that is the whole thing with ravioli; yes, there is the question of how good the pasta is, and the technical difficulty of making well-formed and neat ravioli. But then there is also the matter of making a great filling and a great sauce to go with it. And then, as with any dish, the final presentation, and I think your dish is wonderfully presented. Making really good ravioli remains a skill I would like to try to develop and I think it goes in those stages. First, well I suppose first is to learn to make good pasta, and I would urge you not to give up on that, it absolutely is one of those things you will fairly naturally get good at when you have done it a few times. But then it is about learning to form good looking ravioli that stay sealed while you cook them. Then you come to the search for great fillings and great sauces. And I suppose the final thing is the presentation, but if you have got over all of the other hurdles, then that shouldn’t be so much of a challenge.
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Very kind of you to say so. I will persevere, as you say practise is the key, just like baking I suppose. I will also try to develop the recipe for the filling, as it is a rare (for me) original.
 
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