Duck Ravioli with Seared Foie Gras

Okay, so maybe I went a little over the top here. This takes some serious time and money investment – I split the work over two days, doing the just, duck meat and cracklings on day one. Day two was making the ravioli and fillings, and the extra mushrooms/chard for the plate. Once all the crazy prep is done, this is actually quick and easy to cook, as long as you have your mise all set and plan out what need to be cooked when in your head. I got 13 ravioli – 4 was a sizable serving, because these were some jumbo ravioli. Duck just is probably enough for twice that, I froze the extra. Adjust other ingredients accordingly if you’re trying to scale this.

Duck Jus:

Duck carcass (see below for details)

1 onion, diced

3 medium carrots, diced

3 stalks celery, diced

1 bay leaf

A few sprigs of thyme

Black peppercorns

3 tablespoons tomato paste

3 cups red wine

7 cups chicken stock

2 teaspoons duck fat

The easiest way to do all this might be to roast the whole duck and divide it up afterwards; I thought I would just need to use 2 legs to get the meat for the ravioli filling, but in the end I used two breasts and one leg; Do whatever you need to do, but here’s the way I ended up going about this:

Remove the wings, legs, and breasts from the duck. Set aside the legs and breasts. Remove any remaining skin from the carcass – we’re reserving this for fat rendering and cracklings.

Place the remainder of the duck carcass on a baking tray along with the wings and the duck neck. Roast at 400°F for about 40 minutes, until everything has some nice color on it. Flip about halfway through.

Drain and save any fat on the pan. Cut the carcass into chunks and set aside along with the neck and wings.

In a stockpot over medium heat, add two teaspoons of duck fat and the onions/carrots/celery. Cook for 5 minutes until softened, then add the tomato paste and cook for a few more minutes, allowing the paste to start to caramelize. Add in the wine and reduce until it reaches a syrupy consistency.

Add in the chicken stock, reserved duck bones, thyme, bay leaf and peppercorns. The liquid should be covering everything – if not add water until it does.

Simmer for 4 to 5 hours, then strain through a cheesecloth into a smaller pot. Discard the solids, and place the sauce back on a simmer and reduce until you have 3 to 4 cups of jus.

Cracklings:

Take the excess skin you removed from the duck and place it in a cold pan. Set the heat to low, and allow all the fat to render out, occasionally draining the fat through a strainer and saving it – this stuff is liquid gold so we’re keeping as much of it as possible.

Eventually all the fat will render, and the skin will start to brown. This could take in the neighborhood of 45 minutes depending on the heat in the pan, but that’s not set in stone. Once the skin is nice and brown, remove it from the pan. Chop into bite sized pieces.

Duck meat:

2 duck breasts

1 duck leg

Again, maybe not the optimum way to do this, but this is what I ended up doing. For the leg, roast at 400°F until it hits an internal temp of 165°F. For the breasts, place in a pan on medium heat, skin side down. Allow the fat to render until the skin starts to brown. Turn up the heat and get a nice color on the skin side. Flip, and cook briefly on the meat side, about a minute or two. Breasts should take 20 minutes to cook.

Remove the meat from the breasts and leg, and chop finely for ravioli filling.

Ravioli filling:

Reserved duck meat

½ pound crimini mushrooms, roughly choped

4 small shallots

1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped

Salt and pepper

In a pan over medium heat, add some duck fat and the chopped mushrooms. Season with salt and cook for 4 minutes. Add the shallots and cook for an additional 2 or 3 minutes. Dump mushrooms and shallots in a bowl along with reserved duck meat, thyme, and some salt and pepper as needed.

Pasta dough:

9 ounces flour

6 ounces eggs (3 large eggs)

1 egg white and 1 tablespoon water for egg wash

I add the flour in a large bowl and weigh it out, then form a well in the middle and add eggs. If your eggs don’t quite weight 6 ounces, add a little water to make up the difference. Beat the eggs, slowly incorporating in the flour.

Once all the flour gets incorporated, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 7 minutes. The dough should have a velvety texture. Spritz a piece of saran wrap with cooking spray and place the dough ball on top. Hit the dough with an additional spritz of cooking spray and wrap with the plastic. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Use a pasta machine to roll the dough out in two sheets. Spoon the filling onto one pasta sheet – I used about 1.5 tablespoons per ravioli? They ended up pretty big – I ended up with 13 all together.

Once the filling is spooned onto a pasta, make an egg wash by combining 1 egg white with 1 tablespoon water. Brush the egg wash around the each mound of filling. Take the second pasta sheet, and place it over the filling. Press the pasta together, removing air pockets as you go, and sealing the raviolis. Use a pizza cutter to separate and trim excess.

For the third sheet, place filling on one half, hit it with the egg wash and then fold over and seal.

If you’re making these ahead of time, place raviolis on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and lightly floured and stick in the freezer. Once frozen, place into a Ziploc bag.

Bringing it all together:

Duck Jus

Cracklings

Handful of small crimini muchrooms (or quarter larger ones)

Olive oil

Swiss chard

Duck raviolis

Foie Gras slices (mine came pre sliced, if you have a whole lobe you’ll have to look elsewhere on how to prep it)

Place the mushrooms and a small baking dish and toss with olive oil and salt. Roast in a 400°F oven for 20 minutes. Assuming you made the cracklings and duck jus ahead of time like I did, warm them up in the oven with a few minutes remaining.

For the swiss chard, wash and chop roughly. Add some oil in a pan over medium and saute for 3 to 4 minutes, until wilted, tossing some salt on for good measure.

For the ravioli, bring a pot of well salted water to a boil. Boil the ravioli for 3 minutes (5 if frozen).

For the foie, score on one side with a knife (optional, strictly for presentation purposes – my score marks didn’t turn out super fantastic, but oh well). Salt liberally. Heat a cast iron or other sturdy pan on high – get it really hot now – and sear the foie gras for 30 seconds per side. That’s it, seriously foie gras is that easy to cook (if it comes sliced for you).

Place the chard and raviolis on the plate. Pour over duck jus. Top with roasted mushrooms and cracklings. Place seared foie gras on everything and dig in, because you’ve earned it.

Butternut Squash Ravioli with Butter and Sage Sauce

The theme for this week is cheap meals, and this is a great way to save money but still cook a hoity-toity gourmet meal. I’m somewhat guestimating, but I think the recipe as written below costs about $5 to make, and that’s for 2 servings plus a bunch of leftover raviolis. I didn’t make enough dough, but I’ll write the recipe as if I actually knew what was doing and made enough pasta to go with the filling. Since butternut squashes are pretty hefty vegetables, you can’t really downsize, but you can have some great leftover. The sauce is enough for 2 servings, even though there’s extra ravioli.  Leftovers are dead simple when you already have the ravioli assembled and frozen – just add to boiling water (from frozen) and simmer for 4 minutes.

Pasta dough:

9 ounces all-purpose flour

3 large eggs (6 oz)

1 tbsp olive oil

Filling:

1 butternut squash

3 cloves garlic, unpeeled

¼ cup parmesan cheese (plus more for garnish)

Salt and pepper

Sauce:

4 tbsp butter

1 shallot, diced

Sage leaves

Heat your oven to 375°F. Cut the top off the squash, and split it in half. Scoop out the seeds and gloopy bit (just like carving a pumpkin, but with 10x less). Place the squash cut side down on a baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour. You can either roast the garlic (in its husk) along with the squash (should take 10 minutes or so) or in a dry pan over medium heat, flipping as blackened spots form.

Meanwhile, make a well out of the flour and crack the eggs into the center. Add the olive oil on top of the eggs. Whisk the eggs, slowly incorporating the flour bit by bit until a dough forms.

Knead the dough for approximately 8 minutes on a floured surface, until the dough is silky smooth. Take a piece of plastic wrap and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Place the dough on the plastic, and give it a spray as well. Wrap the dough in the plastic and refrigerate for half an hour.

Is the squash done roasting? Great, scoop out the flesh and add to the bowl of a food processor. Dice the roasted garlic from earlier, and add to the food processor, along with salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese. Process to a puree.

Back to the pasta. Roll out the dough in 3 batches. Start on the lowest (widest) setting, and pass the dough through 4 times, folding like a letter each time. This helps knead the dough. Then, pass the dough through the machine, increasing the setting each time until you reach the thinnest setting. You may want/need to flour the dough lightly during this process. Repeat with remaining dough. Split into 6 equal sized sheets.

Place a spoonful of filling  for each ravioli, giving yourself enough space between each spoonful. Add filling to 3 of the pasta sheets. Get some water in a small bowl, and using a brush, ‘paint’ around the filling. This will make them easier to close. Place one of the pasta sheets that doesn’t have filling on it directly on top of one that does. Seal up each ravioli, pressing out any excess air. Use a biscuit cutter or similar to separate each ravioli from the dough. 

Place any raviolis you don’t plan on immediately cooking on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and place in the freezer until frozen. Transfer to a Ziploc bag.

For the raviolis you are cooking, bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the raviolis, cooking for 1 minute, then removing with a spider/slotted spoon to the pan with the sauce.

Sauce:

Melt butter and add diced shallots, allowing them to get some caramelization. Add the sage and cook for about 1 minute. Add in the cooked pasta, and toss to coat. Serve with additional parmesan cheese.

Scrigno di Venere (Pasta Wrappers Filled with Spinach Fettuccine, Porcini Mushrooms, and Ham)

This recipe comes from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. The idea is that you wrap fettucine in a pasta wrapper, then tie it up to look like one of those purses of gold coins mercenaries from the middle ages would be paid with. However, when it came time for me to secure the pasta wrapper, I had no such luck. It’s rather difficult to manipulate the pasta wrapper without tearing it, so I ended up with a pasta crunchwrap supreme. My negligible photography skills sure weren’t helping either.  Nevertheless, I finally got around to cooking this recipe, which I had been eyeing up ever since I bought Essentials two years ago. Would I make it again? Ehhh, probably not; at least, I wouldn’t bother with the wrapper, but the spinach pasta with the sauces? DELICIOUS. Ham and porcini is a perfect combination of ingredients.

For 2 servings:

Pasta Wrapper:

2 large eggs (4 oz.)

6 oz. unbleached all-purpose flour

Make a well with the flour, add in the eggs, and beat the eggs with a fork (or your fingers), slowly incorporating the flour until you have a mass of dough. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for 7 to 10 minutes, until silky in texture. Spritz with non-stick cooking spray, wrap in plastic, and let rest for at least 30 minutes.

Green Fettucine:

2 large eggs (4 oz)

6 oz. unbleached all-purpose flour

5 oz frozen spinach

Saute the spinach over medium/medium-low with some salt for a few minutes, to help draw out the moisture. Place the spinach on paper towels to remove excess moisture. Mince into small piece and add to the flour. Proceed using the same method as the pasta for the wrappers.

Rolling out the pasta:

Lightly flour the dough. Pass through the widest setting of the pasta machine 4 times, folding the dough into thirds each time. Proceed to roll the dough through thinner settings, one increment at a time, until the desired thickness. My pasta machine goes from 1 (widest) to 9. I rolled out the sheets of fettucine to a 7, and the pasta wrappers to a 6. I cut the fettucine with the attachment on my machine, but you could hand cut (to make tagliatelle) the green pasta as well.

To make the pasta wrappers, cut the long sheets of pasta into thirds. Brush the edges with water, and combine to make a large square of pasta. On a floured surface, use a rolling  pin to combine the pieces. Cut two 8” circles (I used the removable bottom of a tart pan as a tracer).

Cooking the pasta:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta wrapper one at a time (they grow in diameter in the water) and cook for 30 seconds. Remove and place in an ice bath to stop the cooking, then place on a towel. Cook the fettucine in the boiling water for 1-2 minutes, then drain the water, reserving some for the sauce. Save 4 strands of fettucine for tying up the wrappers

Ham & Porcini Sauce:

1 tablespoon butter

1 shallot, diced

¼ lb. ham, cut into pieces

1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms

1 cup porcini soaking liquid (see below)

1 cup heavy cream

¼ cup parmesan cheese

Soak the porcini mushrooms in warm water for half an hour. Strain the liquid through a coffee filter and reserve. Chop any large pieces of mushroom into bit sized pieces. In a large pan over medium heat, add the butter, then cook the shallots until golden. Add the porcinis, and 1 cup of the reserved soaking liquid. Simmer until the liquid is absorbed. Add the ham, cook for half a minute, then add the cream until thickened. Turn off heat and set aside until your fettucine is cooked. Pasta’s ready you say? Great, put the pan over low heat, toss in the fettucine along with the parmesan cheese and toss to cook. Add ¼ cup of the reserved water from the pasta if you need it (I did).

Bechamel:

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon salt

Melt the butter in a small sauce pan, add the flour, and stir for 2 minutes, cooking until golden. Add the milk in two additions, stirring to incorporate. Season with salt.

Bringing it all together (finally):

Preheat your oven to 450°F, and move the rack to the upper third. Place some béchamel on a plate, and coat each pasta wrapper with it. Place the wrappers in small baking dishes (I used a corningware dish I had – seemed fitting for a throwback dish such as this). Fill with half the fettucine. Add the excess béchamel to each. Close up the wrappers so they come together at the top, and secure with toothpicks. Wrap two strands of green fettucine around each. Failing that, fold the pasta wrappers like they were a Cruchwrap Supreme. Awkwardly lay your reserved fettucine on top. Cook on the upper rack of the oven for 8 minutes.

Red Fettuccine with Goat Cheese Cream Sauce

This seemed like a good idea at the time. My plan was to throw a beet into my food processor, then add my usual amount of flour and eggs and voila, red pasta dough. As it turned out, I had to add a boatload of extra flour in order to get the dough to be well, dough. All in all, it turned out okay. The sauce was fine though, so here’s the recipe for that:

2 Tbs Butter, plus additional for sautéing mushrooms
2 Tbs Flour
½ cup Cream
1.5 cups milk
2 oz. goat cheese
Sliced mushrooms (I used ~7 creminis)
1 Shallot, diced
2 cloves of garlic, diced
Salt and Pepper
Nutmeg
Oregano

Melt the 2 T butter in a sauce pan, and add the flour. Stir vigorously for a minute or 2, so there aren’t any lumps, until the roux starts turning golden. Add in the cream & milk, and continue to whisk to incorporate. Add in the goat cheese, stirring until it melts. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and oregano.

Meanwhile, in a pan over medium heat, melt some butter and sauté the mushrooms for a few minutes until they start to take on some color. Add the shallot and garlic and cook for another minute or so. Add the cream sauce mixture to the mushroom pan, and stir to incorporate everything. Add the cooked pasta and toss to finish.