Think On It

Weeds again!

June 20th, 2007

I made the nettle raviolis again last night with two girlfriends. It’s more fun to make stuffed pastas with friends, because there’s quite a lot of small and repetitive work involved. Until your hands get used to it, it can be slow going, so some friends, an assembly line and a glass of wine make the whole experience a very nice one.

Making stuffed pastas is also something to do with children. Very small children can make big 4” squares with a dollop of filling and then folded into a triangle. Gluing the edges together with some cool water on your finger is close to the experiences they’re having in school, too, so it’s an occasion to find out that what one learns in school is useful in everyday life. As they grow older and more adept, they can make the smaller and more intricate ones. All things considered, I think children have a better shot at getting good at it faster than adults.

Fillings can be so varied that there’s almost no possibility that a child won’t like at least some of them. It’s good for kids to know where food comes from and how it becomes what’s on their plates. When they see how delicately some things are used, they may be more open-minded about trying again things they rejected before. Somehow, mixed with other things and cooked inside pasta, spinach loses its ick-factor. And what kid could resist the idea of pork and cookies used together? Amaretti in crumbs are used in several spicy fillings where the sweet and the almond add a soft note.

This time, it was the same as last week, but I got some more photos. Why nettles again? Because the heat moved in yesterday and shortly they will bloom and become useless for human food until the autumn. (They will still make the best plant food around.) I made too much pasta, too, but I cut the rest into ribbons and dried it. Today’s lunch was some of that cooked and served with frozen sauce from the Winter Foods entry.

Here are our little half moon ravioli. Marianne asked me why I don’t use a form that makes a bunch of square ones at once and I told her it is because the dough must be thicker or they don’t seal and you end up with soup.

I think these look nice, but do NOT stack yours like this. Humidity develops and by the time you get to cook them they are stuck together and some will rip. Lay them onto a clean kitchen towel instead, which you can lightly flour for even more safety.

Heat salted water to a simmer, drop them in and when the float, skim them out. In the pasta bowls I laid fresh sage leaves, a chunk of butter and then the hot pasta. Everybody else ate theirs with more grated cheese on top, but I rarely use it unless the flavor demands it or the pasta isn’t salty enough. Unlike other kinds of pasta, do not boil stuffed pasta. A simmer is all you want.

These are Jon’s hands last week, Microplaning a really hard and really old Parmigiano Reggiano. Last night, since I had no big hands around, I used freshly grated from the shop. Finely grating 70 grams of cheese is quite time-consuming.

What else would I put into ravioli? Anything from a small piece of a very tasty soft cheese to a single shrimp. Stuffed pastas are one of the most creatively free things around. Leftover pasta sauce? Blend it, add some cheeses to stiffen it a bit and use that. Pumpkin or squash? With free-ranges of spices, absolutely. Eat them smoking hot with a well-chosen sauce or cold in a salad. Fry them and pass them on cocktail sticks with drinks. Go fusion and try fillings from other ethnic ingredients and spices.

But first of all, try making them. If you still haven’t bought a pasta roller, after being urged to do so THREE times already, you can roll them out on a floury surface with a big rolling pin. Better you than I. The pasta should be thin enough to read through.

If this isn’t pasta, although not exactly presto, I don’t know what is. Let’s get the world’s cooks to eat weeds like we do.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized, Food, Waste, Italy, Beauty, kitchen stuff