So I had this craving for the traditional meat ravioli that the Italian population in St.Louis is known for (I was feeling a little homesick). I can’t replicate the “fried ravioli” (nor do I really want to right this moment), but the filling is really the important part and I felt inspired. However, I had a moment of laziness and bought some spinach pasta sheets (fresh) from Berkeley Bowl to shortcut my ravioli making. Should you not have this luxury, use a simple egg pasta recipe like the one you can find in this entry on Fresh Italian Egg Pasta, and be sure to not roll the sheets too thin for the purposes of ravioli.

Beef & Cheese Ravioli Filling
1/4 lb lean ground beef (I used grass fed)
1/3 lb ground pork (I used organic/all natural)
1/2 medium to small yellow onion
2 crushed garlic cloves, loosely chopped
thyme fresh or dried to taste
a small amount of ricotta cheese (2-6 T to taste)
bread crumbs
salt & pepper

I made the sauce at the same time which required:

Simple Tomato Sauce
olive oil
san marzano D.O.P tomatoes imported from italy, one large can or one large jar
2 crushed & course chopped garlic cloves
1/2 medium to small yellow onion

I chopped the onion finely and the garlic as well and sauteed it together in olive oil with a heavy pinch of large grain salt for both the ravioli and the sauce. When the onions were soft (do this on fairly low heat for a longer time; if you blast the garlic it will be colorful and bitter and have no flavor, even if it smells good), I added a little less than a quarter cup of olive oil to a hot sauce pan and then a little more than half of the onion & garlic mixture. I added thyme to both the large sautee pan which would cook the filling and to the sauce pan.

Next, mix the two ground meats  and then drop them in chunks into your sauce pan, turning the heat up to about medium. Make sure there is enough salt, pepper, and thyme.

Let the sauce simmer: it’s just garlic, olive oil, onions, thyme, tomatoes. Put it on low and leave it while you do everything else. This sauce can be modified with jalapeno or other peppers or chili flakes to make arribiata sauce, with capers to make puttanesca, with meat cooked in the same pan for bolognese.

Once the meat has cooked through, put everything from the pan including the drippings into a food processor. Add two good handfuls of breadcrumbs, a few tablespoons of ricotta (preferably you will push this through a fine mesh strainer with a spatula first to improve the texture), salt & pepper, and I had some pesto from Berkeley Bowl sitting around (mostly parsley, a bit of walnut) so I added a few spoonfuls of that too. Grind it until it’s fine, adding bread crumbs or ricotta as needed to achieve a nice moist consistency but where the filling rolls into a ball inside the food processor and is still moist enough to stick together well.

Cut your raviolis. I used a biscuit cutter. You can cut squares or whatever other method you have. The important thing is to NOT OVER FILL the ravioli. Wet with your finger & some water around the edges of each ravioli (one side of the two pieces) to seal them, making sure to push as much air out as you can as you go around and seal them.

Boil water. Once boiling, salt well (a good handful of rock salt). Do not crowd the pan with the water. Use a plenty large enough one. I boiled seven raviolis in a large pasta pot. The bigger, the better–they will cook more evenly. The picture below shows what the pasta will look like when it’s about done–it should be slightly floppier than when it went in, but not limp. Usually, fresh pasta takes 3 to 5 minutes.

Serve with the simple tomato sauce (just a few spoon fulls) on top and some grated fresh Parmesan reggiano. I’d like to note that it is only acceptable to serve Parmesan with tomato sauce when there is also MEAT in the dish. It should never be served with a vegetarian dish or fish dish.

Tuesday night my friend Peter‘s neck was hurting and he offered me a barter: fix it for food. I brought a bottle of Barbera D’Asti and expected duck.

Peter’s dinners are always wonderful and seemingly effortless, I don’t know anyone who seems so comfortable in the kitchen and works so quickly. I often find myself wondering when he had time to chop something or how he remembered to turn the oven on AND managed to cook three items perfectly at the same time, while chatting. Here’s what he made.

Peter made a fantastic soup (more like a dashi in my opinion) with yuzu “juice”, scallions, shiso and a poached oyster in each bowl. The presentation was simple and beautiful.

Then, I was thinking I wasn’t starving, but could have participated in having lemon pasta in a creamy Uni sauce (with whole peices of uni). It looked and smelled good, but I was holding out for the promised duck.

Duck breast cooked with a new technique: salt sprinked onto a very hot cast iron pan, duck breasts scored and fat side down into the pan for a good amount of time. Some chopped Fuji (?) apples at the last minute, and into the oven to finish cooking to delicious medium rare (he has never failed at this).

Meanwhile, he sauteed some whole crushed garlic cloves, raisins, and chili flakes in oil–then spinach, all together, and a touch of lemon juice at the end. The duck came out of the oven, was plated, and the apples were then flambe’d with calvados.

Thus, crispy duck breast with calvados apples and spicy spinach. So_Delicious.

And it didn’t end there. He admitted to copying this last idea, but I have to say every dining experience with Peter is different and I am baffled and endlessly interested int he combinations of flavors he puts together. Rarely do they not work wonderfully.
Dark chocolate gelato with bergamont olive oil & sea salt. Divine.

I’m so lucky to have such talented, generous, food-driven friends. Wish I had some pictures, I need to start carrying my camera around, especially at dinner time.

Last Sunday my friend James had a large, casual gathering of friends to his place in San Francisco for cake. he baked several:

a delectable and perfectly moist carrot cake,
an orange pound cake,
cardamom coffee cake,
peanut butter pound cake,
New York cheesecake with strawberry sauce,
walnut-chocolate bundt cake.

It was a mix of great people and great food, good coffee & port. I meant to bring a bottle of Jurancon from France, but stupidly left it in the refrigerator. James will have to enjoy it another time.

My favorites were the carrot cake and the chocolate bundt cake; my friend said the secret to the carrot cake is soaking the shredded carrot in sugar for a few hours (overnight?) to remove water and improve texture. I’ll try to get a few recipes to accompany the picture of cake below!

I’d like to note that this site is now publicly related to dontvisit.com, which has now been put back online, and is actively being updated and added to, and houses poetry, visual art, and significant links to artistic projects ranging from short stories, poetry, photography projects, and technology-driven art such as “You’re the man now dog,” and the anonymous message server project.

For lunch today I cracked open an unusual bottle of Tempanillo rose (“Flamenco Rojo”) from a so-so Paso Robles winery that I have an unusual history with (which is a story we’ll save for another time). I paired it with a panino and a friend; Ga Eul came by while I was sauteeing some red onions and the final result was crusty puglese bread sandwiches hot from the oven (a substitute for the panini press I don’t have) stacked with roast beef, carmelized red onions, black truffle oil, shaved parmesean, and arugula. If you have a panini machine, I trust you can figure out how to put this together: my only warning is to not use too much truffle oil, or you WILL ruin your food. If you don’t have a panini machine, here’s what I did from start to finish:

For sandwiches to feed 3-4 people you will need:

block of parmesean
loaf of puglese, medium to small size, or other non-sourdough bread
1/3 to 1/2 lb roast beef
enough arugula for one salad
truffle oil (I prefer black for this sandwich) or truffle spread
two red onions
olive oil, salt

Peel & chop two red onions, heat about two tablespoons of olive oil in a preferably nonstick pan on low-medium heat, add onions. They can be in half sphere slices. Once they are sizzling, turn heat to low. They need to cook on low or they will only brown and the sugar will not carmalize and give it the nice flavor and texture you’re looking for. It will take at least 30 minutes. The onions are done when they become soft and worm like but still have some red color and the thicker pieces will have some snap to them, some moisture. Be sure to season the onions while you’re cooking, liberally with salt.
Slice your bread into fairly thin slices as we aren’t using a press to make them thinner. Heat your oven to 400 degrees. You will need foil.

Toast the bread to a golden brown. Cover one side of the sandwich for each one in a drizzle of truffle oil, or a brushing of spread. Next, a slice or two of roast beef. Then, warm carmelized onions (or you can make the onions before and leave the sandwiches in the oven longer). Then, parmesean shavings, quite a lot. Arugula, just a nice handful, and salt–a good shake per sandwich. Wrap each sandwich or pair two sandwiches in foil, airtight. Place them in your 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes.

Slice in half, plate. Consider more salt, depending how salty your meat was. THe truffle oil and onions won’t stand out as well without the salt, so this is important.

And enjoy your pseudo-panino, a nice satisfying hot sandwich without a panini press, and with less fat.