I'm a corner cutter when it comes to cooking most of the time. One thing you will NEVER see me making in my kitchen is pastry dough or pasta. When I want fresh pasta, I'll go to the Italian market to buy it. For this ravioli, I used wonton wrappers (not THAT bad...even Martha suggested using these for ravioli :)
This time of year I find myself craving lamb. Don't know why but I do know that this recipe satisfied my craving and I high fived myself after eating it. It's good enough to share.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup bread crumbs (I used Panko crumbs)
1/2 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
3 eggs (2 for filling and 1 to seal the ravioli)
2 large cloves of garlic (minced)
1/2 yellow onion (or white) chopped finely
handful of chopped fresh mint
wonton wrappers (you can find these in the refrigerated section of most groceries)
1 package of baby bella mushrooms (sliced)
3 tablespoons of butter
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 cup of your favorite cheese (I used Parmesan)
1 cup milk (room temp)
Salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
Instructions:
In a large saute pan, heat up a drizzle of olive oil over medium high heat. Cook the chopped onion and 1 large clove of garlic minced. When onions are soft, add the lamb and salt and pepper generously. Break the lamb up with a spatula so that it cooks evenly. When the meat is finished cooking, put it in a large bowl and allow to cool for a few minutes while you prepare other ingredients.
Go ahead and start the sauce while the meat cools. In the same pan that you cooked the meat in, add 2 tablespoons of butter and the other minced garlic clove. Chop your mushrooms and place them in the pan and cook on medium low until soft. Once soft, reduce the heat to low so they don't burn while you are assembling the ravioli.
To the meat, add bread crumbs, ricotta cheese, 2 eggs, salt and pepper (a good few pinches of both) 2/3 of the chopped mint.
I used a fork to combine all ingredients but I think next time I'll use a food processor to grind the cooked meat smaller. It just depends on how fine you want your filling to be. It will be heartier if you just mix with a fork and fill the ravioli with the meat straight from the pan.
Once all ingredients are well mixed, open your wonton wrappers but only remove a few from the package as you need them (they tend to dry out). Lay a piece of wax paper on a baking sheet and place how ever many wrappers will fit. Break an egg into a bowl and whisk together the egg and a few splashes of cold water (this is called an egg wash). This will be used to seal the top wrapper to the bottom wrapper. WIth a brush, paint the egg wash around the edges of your bottom wrapper and then put about a tablespoon of filling into each wrapper. Seal the ravioli by placing another wrapper on top and squeeze the edges shut (very important! This step seals the ravioli so it won't break open in your boiling water).
before you finish your cream sauce, put on a large pot of boiling salted water. While you are waiting on the water to come to a boil, bring the mushroom pan up to medium high heat and add another tablespoon of butter. When it melts, add the flour to the butter and brown. Slowly whisk in milk so there are no clumps in the sauce. You can choose to make this sauce really thick (like I did) or add a little more milk or stock to thin it out. Once the sauce simmers (not boils! the milk will scald...YUCK) and thickens, add the cheese and taste to see if it needs more salt/pepper. Once the sauce is at your desired consistency, reduce to low just to keep warm.
Your water should be boiling now...so drop about 3-4 ravioli in the water at a time and cook for about 4-5 minutes each. When finished, take out with a slotted spoon and put on a platter and place somewhere to keep warm and cover with plastic wrap until all ravioli's are cooked. You can put them all on a pretty flat platter or you can make individual plates as you go along (that's what I did). Place 4-5 on each plate and spoon mushroom sauce on top and sprinkle with some pretty chopped mint. Devour.
***SIDE NOTE!! You can pre-make these, lay them on a cookie sheet and between layers, separate with wax paper and freeze individually on the sheet (so they don't stick together!). Once frozen, place them in a freezer ziplock baggie and you have a quick and easy dinner in the future. (these would be great with even store bought red sauce or alfredo sauce)
