For Christmas last year, my parents gave me a “gift certificate” to go shopping with my mom for something for the kitchen.  Although I used some of it a couple months ago (to get those low bowls in the picture, come to think of it) we hadn’t found time for me to use the rest of it, mostly because I had been indecisive about what I wanted to get.  Last week I was told that my “gift certificate” would expire after six months, so I needed to get to it!  We went to Williams Sonoma one night last week and I decided to buy this beautiful pasta maker.  Isn’t it a beauty?  I love that it’s bright red and shiny!

I was eager to put this baby to work, so I decided to make ravioli for some friends we were having over Saturday night.  (I’m in a little bit of trouble for breaking it in without letting Mom help, but I was just getting the kinks worked out.)  My only previous experience with making pasta was for the Daring Bakers lasagne a couple months back.  In that case, while it turned out very tasty, it was really a pain to roll out by hand (tearing, etc.) and I could never get it anywhere close to as thin as I wanted.This time, I used a recipe for egg pasta adapted from How to Cook Everything.  I don’t know whether it was the pasta recipe or having the pasta maker to roll it out, but it went so much more smoothly.  We only had one piece that tore to any significant extent, and I found the dough surprisingly easy to work with.  It’s still nice to have an extra pair of hands as the pasta does get pretty long when you’re rolling it on the thinnest setting, but the dough is actually easy enough it was actually ok even with one person.  As long as the machine and the dough were both floured pretty well, it hardly stuck to itself at all!

If you haven’t worked with a pasta maker before, you basically start with a small rectangle of dough and the rollers on the pasta machine at their widest setting.  It then has settings so you can move the rollers closer and closer together a little bit at a time (mine has 6 settings), until you end up with a delicate, papery thin pasta.  In fact, I found the dough to be maybe a bit too thin for ravioli — next time I think I might stop at the second to last setting instead of the last one.  After you’re done rolling you can either shape or cut the pasta by hand, or some pasta makers have attachments for cutting it into noodles (like the spaghetti in the picture that I made from the pasta scraps) or even for making and filling ravioli.

I love the pasta machine I got, which is made by an Italian company called Imperia, because everything just fits together so nicely, and it seems to work really well.  There’s even a place to store the handle inside when it’s put away, so it’s actually pretty compact, too.  And the best part?  You don’t even have to wash it!  Using water on the pasta maker can cause it to gunk up and then rust from the flour, which you’d never be able to completely clean out, so all you do is brush it off with a pastry brush after you’re done.  Now that’s my kind of kitchen equipment!

I don’t remember where I first heard of it (though I think it might have been Bittman’s blog, Bitten), but frying sage is an amazing culinary experience to me.  You take some leaves that taste ok on their own, and some butter that tastes ok pretty darn good on its own, and when you combine the two, you get something that is much more than the sum of its parts.  Not only does the sage becomes deliciously crispy, but the “furriness” of the leaves seems to sort of soak up the butter, so you get something rich and delicate and deeply flavorful, all at the same time.  I just love it, and I wanted to base my ravioli around that.  It’s also based somewhat on a dish from La Strada in Palo Alto.

I flavored the sausage filling for the ravioli with sage as well, and then, after frying the sage, I made a brown butter sauce, and also sprinkled in some pancetta.  While this sounds like a lot of fuss from making the ravioli, it actually didn’t take that long, and you can always make the ravioli ahead so it doesn’t take so long in one go.  Or, you could serve it inside out, and just toss any kind of noodles with the brown butter and sausage.  And of course, you can buy some pretty good pre-made ravioli, and if you do that, the brown butter sauce takes all of 5 minutes to come together, so that would definitely be a simple way to go.  Any way you try it, don’t leave off the fried sage — that’s the best part!

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Sausage Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter

Pasta recipe adapted from  How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
Inspired by La Strada
Serves 4

For the pasta:
2 c all purpose flour
1 t salt
2 whole eggs
3 egg yolks

For the filling:
3/4 lb Italian sausage, bulk or with casings removed
1 large shallot, chopped
2 T chopped sage
grating of nutmeg (optional)
1/2 c Parmigiano, grated
1 beaten egg

For the sauce:
2 oz pancetta
about a dozen fresh sage leaves
6 T butter

First make the pasta dough: combine the flour and salt in a food processor. Add the eggs and yolks and process until it begins to come together into a ball. Now look at the dough: if it’s grainy, add some water a few drops at a time. (This is what I did, and I think I ended up adding a couple teaspoons of water before the dough would finally come together completely.) If it’s sticking to the food processor, add a little bit of flour. Once it seems to be about the right amounts of flour and water, remove from the food processor and knead by hand just a little bit. (You can also do all of the kneading and combining by hand instead of using the food processor. In that case, make a well in the flour and mix in the eggs with a fork until combined, and then add water/flour as needed and knead.) When you knead it, you want to be able to stretch it a little bit before it breaks (but mine really didn’t stretch very much before breaking off, and it turned out fine). Cover the dough and let it rest at room temperature at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the filling: cook the bulk Italian sausage over medium high heat, crumbling as it cooks. When its most of the way cooked, add the chopped shallot and continue to cook. When the sausage and shallot are nicely browned, drain off any excess fat. Toss in the sage, a small grating of fresh nutmeg, and the parmigiano. Taste and adjust the seasoning (it may need a little salt). Let it cool just a bit and stir in the beaten egg. (You just want it cool enough that the egg won’t scramble.) Set aside.

Now, roll out the pasta. Cut off about a third of the dough. On a lightly floured surface, shape it into a rectangle about the width of the pasta maker. Flour the pasta maker. Roll it through on the widest setting, then continue to roll it through on incrementally higher settings. I went all the way to the highest (thinnest) setting. This makes for a delicious, delicate pasta, but some of it kind of fell apart when I boiled it/tossed it with the sauce, so you might want to go with one setting short of the highest one. Flour the rolled pasta and cover it with plastic. Repeat with the other two thirds of pasta dough.

Cut the dough into rectangles that are the width of the pasta maker and a foot or so long. Working with one sheet a time, drop teaspoons of the filling onto the dough, about an inch apart, making a row along one side of the pasta sheet. Wet the dough a bit with a finger and then fold it over and seal it. Use a pastry cutter or knife to cut into individual ravioli. The ravioli can be refrigerated in a single layer on a floured cookie sheet for up to a day, or can be frozen.

For the sauce: first brown the chopped pancetta until it’s just barely crispy. Set aside. Put on a pot of salted water to boil. When it’s close to boiling, melt a couple tablespoons of butter over medium heat in a large saute pan. When it’s hot, add the sage and fry for a couple minutes on each side. Remove with a slotted spoon. Add the rest of the butter and cook over medium to medium low heat until it’s browned and smells nutty (like making caramel, your nose is a better indicator than your eyes). Keep the sauce barely warm, and add the ravioli to the boiling water. They should only take about 3 minutes to cook. When the ravioli are done, gently toss them and the pancetta with the browned butter sauce. Serve immediately, garnished with the fried sage.

Pictures to come next week, when I return from a trip to Long Beach. But this is so good, I didn’t think you should be without the recipe for any longer than absolutely necessary.

I have only a vague recollection of having brussel sprouts once before a few months ago. I don’t really remember having a strong opinion one way or another the first time I had them. So I didn’t grow up hating them the way I hear some people do, but they were just sort of off my radar. Then my parents went and took a fancy cooking class down in Wastonville, and since then, both Mom and I have been making brussel sprouts left and right. I think Matt and I have eaten them as a side dish at least twice this week. (And no, the second one wasn’t leftovers. There are never any leftovers.)

So as I was saying, I don’t know whether I like brussel sprouts ordinarily on their own or not, but I sure love them this way. This recipe is delicious, and except for being doused in olive oil, pancetta, sugar, and chicken broth, they’re pretty good for me, right?

They take a bit of time to cook, but don’t be tempted to pull them out too soon, no matter how hungry you might be, as the best part of these sprouts are the golden browned caramelized edges. Oh, and the crisped up pancetta. That’s pretty delicious too.

Yet another recipe adapted from my mom and dad’s class at Mugnaini Imports. I’m telling you, these folks are real winners.

Ingredients:

6-8 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Sugar
1/2 c chicken broth
6-8 slices of pancetta
A few handfuls of brussel sprouts, cleaned

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 300 F. Drizzle olive oil generously over the garlic in a jelly roll pan. Roast in a low oven until barely golden, 10-15 minutes. (But check them often, you don’t want them to get too brown.) Sprinkle with sugar and add chicken broth. Cook for another few minutes. Take this out of the pan and mash up the garlic into the broth. If the garlic gets too brown or cooks too quickly so that it won’t really mash, no worries. Just stick it in the food processor or blender (or chop the cloves up by hand.) Set aside. Turn the oven up to about 400 F.

Meanwhile, parboil the brussel sprouts: add just enough salted water to cover (though you won’t really be able to cover since they float). Turn on the heat and boil for 5-10 minutes, until barely tender. (You should be able to stick a fork in them, but when you do you should still feel reasonably firm resistance.) Drain the brussel sprouts and set them aside until cool enough to handle.

Chop the pancetta. Brown it in the oven for a few minutes in the jelly roll pan.

Meanwhile, cut each brussel sprout in half along the same axis as the stem. When the pancetta is slightly browned (it doesn’t have to be completely done), mix the broth/garlic mixture, pancetta, and brussel sprouts. Cook in the 400 F oven about 15-20 minutes, stirring every five minutes or so, until the sprouts are nicely browned and the edges caramelized a bit.

Eat as soon as possible, as they are best when they’re hot. Though they are still good room temperature too. These are just delicious all around.