Porcini Ravioli

It now feels well and truly like summer has fled, which is a little sad, but mostly happy, because it's not ragingly hot anymore and most of the German tourists have gone home (to be replaced by American undergrads, to be sure, but still).   Also, porcinis are now in season!  Which means a lot of good things, but about 2 weeks ago it meant porcini ravioli.  Our first experiment with making fresh pasta was actually with a porcini/champignon/truffle filled tortelloni Lauren and her classmate Emily made for their adviser, so these have a bit of happy history for us.

You can make Ravioli in about 3 ways that I know of:  with an attachment for your pasta maker, which I hear is a pain; by placing a bunch of spoonfuls of filling in between two sfoglias and then cutting/crimping them apart, either with one of those slick little wavy wheel thangs that looks like it should belong to an especially gear-headed seamstress or with a knife and then fork; or you can get a little metal tray whose proper name I don't know but looks a lot like this:

Which is what we've been reveling in for the last several months.

The making of the filling can be pretty open ended.  This time we got one fresh porcini, diced it and then sauteed it in some olive oil with a little bit of minced red onion and fresh thyme until the porcini was quite soft.  Dried porcinis (reconstituted in hot water) and button mushrooms (with a couple of drops of truffle oil if you really want a nice fungi kick) with or without some pancetta works well, as do many other similar things.  This time we mixed the sauteed porcinis with fresh ricotta because that was what we had around, but for the best texture and flavor I like to use fresh ricotta with grated (or crumbled) ricotta salata (aged dried salted ricotta).  Ricotta salata e affumicata would probably be even better, but I haven't had any, so I can't say for sure.  Fill and cut out your ravioli, however you are equipped to do so, let them dry for a bit, then cook (boiling water, salt, take it out when it's done, etc.)

I find that the quandary for filled pasta comes with the sauce.  For other pastas the sauce is where you get to shine.  For a filled pasta it's where you get to try and be good (and possibly even interesting) while attempting not to upstage whatever is inhabiting the noodle.  This time I played it safe and did the ever classic brown butter with sage leaves.

p.s.  It's tempting, but resist the urge to over fill your ravioli.  It just makes a mess.

p.p.s.  If you use one of the ravioli trays flour both the tray and the dough liberally if you want  to have a happy post-tray experience.