Crab filled ravioli in a lemon butter cream sauce, and glazed beats

7 October 2009 in Cooking

This was my first home made pasta adventure. I learned that like pizza, bread, and pastry dough, pasta will take some practice.

Mario Batali being one of my favorite TV chefs, is where i looked for a fresh pasta recipe. The recipe is fine, but my ability to follow directions and execute it was not apparently. My pasta turned out a little tough and way too thick.

The thickness was hard to overcome, because I do not have a pasta rolling machine. Another tip, teflon rolling pins have their uses, but I have yet to find one (need to buy a nice wooden one).

Other than tough pasta the dish came out great. I improvised the filling and sauce and I was happy with both.

Crab Filling

1 lb crab meat, canned/fresh lump meat would be fine, but I found that buying $14.00 of Alaskan Crab clusters was cheaper. Although you have to do all the shelling. I ended up with more than a pound.

Zest of one lemon

Juice from half a lemon

1 block softened (I nuked mine for 1 min) cream cheese (goat, parm, or mascarpone would substitute nicely).

Toss this through without breaking up your crab too bad. Place in refridgerator until ready to fill.

Sauce

I will be as accurate as I can be here, but really I used what was on hand and did not measure.

2 slices of prosciutto

1 tbs good olive oil

1 medium shallot

3 cloves garlic sliced thin

1/4 cup heavy cream

3 tbs butter

Juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup Chateau St. Michelle Riesling

First, render the prosciutto enough to get it nice and crisp (the dish needed texture). Next, add olive oil to the prosciutto pan to use the flavor it leaves in the pan. Cook the shallots long enough to soften, then add the garlic for 30-40 seconds, being careful not to burn either. Now add the wine and let it reduce almost until the liquid is gone. At this point I set my sauce pan on a trivet, so I could make the pasta. When the pasta is ready put the pan back on medium heat and add your lemon juice. I didn’t reduce the lemon juice, as much as I brought the temperature up. This is when you add the cream, careful not to boil it. Just before I dropped the ravioli in the cooking water, I added the butter to the sauce, off of the heat. This way it thickens and does not break.

As the ravioli finish cooking (4 minutes for me), I removed them form the water with a slotted spatula and put them directly in the sauce. Transfer the ravioli form the sauce pan to a plate and sauce to your liking. Crumble the prosciutto over each portion and then mangiare!

Glazed beets

1 bunch beets

1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice

2 tbs raspberry preserves (honey, your favortie preserves can be substituted)

1 tbs Balsamic (I would leave this out next time, but I am not a lover of balsamic)

First steam your beats and prepare to dye your hands/utensils red. I used a bamboo steamer for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes stem, skin, and quarter your beats, then set aside while you make glaze. Combine the glaze ingredients in a small sauce pan and heat until it gets a thick glaze like texture. Once the glaze is thick enough toss your beats in the glaze and serve.