Lake House Store cooking class – roasted butternut squash ravioli

I recently attended a cooking class at the Lake House Store in Kelowna. This is one of my favourite stores in town and much of my cookware and kitchen gadgets come from there, not the least a Kitchenaid,  Vitamix,  Fissler pressure cooker, Le Creuset, Nesspresso coffee maker (for my husband) and more, none of which I would do without.

The state of the art kitchen is surprisingly spacious, hidden during the week by beautiful merchandise displayed on the two long countertops wrapped around it. The space can easily accommodate a hands on class for 8 people with room to spare.

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Classes are held at 6:00 pm after the store is closed. Upon arrival we were greeted by in-house chef Kate McKay, handed an apron and offered a glass of wine and a selection of bread, olives and marinated artichokes to tide us over until dinner (served at the end of the class). Ingredients for the class were arranged in an attractive display on the counter. While we waited for everyone to arrive we stood around the counter chatting with chef Kate as she was doing the final preparation for the class.

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The menu for the class tonight was traditional Italian:

Bruschetta

Roasted butternut squash and goat cheese ravioli
with sage brown butter sauce and pine nuts

Affogato with home made tiramisu ice cream

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Chef Kate first demonstrated how to make pasta dough using “00” flour and an egg. She does not add oil or salt to the dough.  After kneading it for a few minutes pressing the heal of her hand into the dough and folding it over repeatedly, the pasta dough turned out perfectly soft, smooth and elastic. Now it was our turn to reproduce what we saw. We were handed the ingredients and each of us made our own dough, let it rest for a while, then rolled it in a Marcato Steel Pasta Machine into a long, wide ribbon.

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Chef Kate made two different fillings in advance: roasted butternut squash with crumbled goat cheese and a ricotta and spinach filling.  We piled the filling into mounds along the dough strip (best way to do this evenly is with a small  ice cream scoop), covered it with the second strip of dough and pressed the air out from around the filling so the ravioli do not break during the cooking. We cut the ravioli into various shapes and sizes. The easiest way cut it into uniform shape is with a round or a square cutter. I think we managed between 6-8 ravioli per recipe, depending on the size. We cooked the ravioli and then took turns making the brown butter with fresh sage leaves, tossing our ravioli in the golden, nutty butter before plating and sprinkling with pine nuts.

I have made the recipe at home and with Kate’s permission sharing it here. Kate suggests to use 100 gr flour and 1 egg per one serving of pasta. Multiply that by the number of servings you need or just make it for yourself. Do it. You are worth it.

Enjoy.

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Ingredients:

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Pasta per person

100 gr ‘00’ flour
1 free range egg

Place flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Crack the egg into the well, and using a fork scramble the egg. Slowly start incorporating the flour. When about half the flour is combined remove the fork and proceed using your hands.

Knead the dough until it forms a smooth elastic ball. Cover and allow to rest for half an hour.

Use a pasta machine to roll pasta dough out to long lasagna sheets. Cover until needed.

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Ravioli filling

4 x portion of pasta dough, rolled with pasta machine to thinnest possible sheets

300 gm butternut squash, cubed and roasted

150 gm fresh goat’s cheese

½ tsp lemon rind

50 gm Parmigiano-Reggiano

Salt and pepper

Combine squash, cheeses, lemon rind and season with salt and pepper. Adjust according to your taste.

Using 2 teaspoons place small amounts 1 inch apart on pasta sheets.

Brush a small amount of water around the squash mix and lay another pasta sheet over the top.

Making sure to remove all air, press around the ravioli to combine the pasta together. Either cut into square, or circles.

Using large pot with boiling salted water, gently add raviolis.

Once they float to the surface they are ready to be taken out, about 5-6 minutes.

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Brown butter and sage sauce

80 gm butter

6 sage leaves

20gm toasted pine nuts (I used walnuts)

½ Lemon

Parmigiano-Reggiano

Salt and pepper

Warm butter in fry pan. When pasta is almost cooked, raise the butter temperature and allow to turn golden before adding juice from the lemon.

Add sage leaves and pasta and seasoning.

Toss in pan, and serve.

Grate fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano over top of pasta and sprinkle with toasted pine nuts.

My Note: if you’d like crisp sage then fry the sage in the butter until crisp allowing it infuses the butter with its flavour, then remove to a plate and use to garnish the ravioli. Use the same brown butter to sauce the ravioli.

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