Notes from the Kitchen: Fresh, Locally Grown, Hand Made Food ~ Pumpkin Raviolis

In gearing up for the thousands of potential customers on Northport's Historic 'Cow Harbor Day', I had the notion that with the onset of fall and the retail 'craze' around anything pumpkin, we would be crazy not to sell my Home Made Pumpkin Raviolis. Well my retail radar was completely wrong and off, because on that day we did not sell but a handful of items off of the special menu, which included Home Made Pumpkin Raviolis, Snow Crab Raviolis, Swordfish Kebabs, Fried Artichoke Hearts and Parmesan Corn, and NOT ONE ORDER of pumpkin raviolis.

In the food and retail business, I am always looking at trends and looking for ideas on what is popular and what might appeal to people. As of course we are always looking to please & excite our existing customers and be so tantalizing that we garnish new customers. I have a personal philosophy around fresh food, locally grown food and I try to purchase for the restaurant from local vendors when ever I can. Delea Farm Stand is my favorite place to get stuff for the restaurant. https://www.facebook.com/DeleaFarmstand

I buy the heirloom tomatoes there for my Heirloom Tomato & Beet Salad as well as the Corn for the Coconut Corn Chowder and on and on. But I was asking for pumpkins before they had them and finally just about a week before Cow Harbor they brought the first pumpkin harvest.

Another thing I have observed about the public and their food habits. There is a veil in the media that says people are interested in healthy diets, healthy living, consciousness around where our money gets spent in the purchasing of food. Cow Harbor Day was a prime case study that told me that there are few people that pay attention and most just want something 'fast'. I'm pretty sure they don't care how its made, where its made or what's in it....as long as it gets to there mouths right now! However, that's not going to stop me from continuing to make fresh, hand made food products ~ because I believe that what we are doing is good, and I will find the people who are on board with our philosophy!

So today I'd like to share with you the recipe for the pumpkin raviolis, if you don't have the time ~ I still have plenty left and will be offering them as a special again this weekend in the restaurant.

CAMPARI'S PUMPKIN RAVIOLIS
You want to get the smaller, 'pie' pumpkins for anything you are going to make out of pumpkin, the flavor is more intense. I am fortunate that my pizza ovens are great tools for things other than making pizza! One pumpkin would be enough to make a small batch of raviolis for a family dinner and probably left overs to freeze.

For the filling: Cut and clean your pumpkin into big wedges. Just scoop the seeds clean off leaving as much as the flesh as possible. On a cookie sheet lay the wedges skin side down (flesh up). Get your oven to roasting temperature : 450 degrees. I drizzle the pumpkins with olive oil and dust with a spice mixture of nutmeg, paprika, salt and a little ginger. When your oven is ready, roast the pumpkin until a knife goes through the entire depth, smoothly and softly.

For the dough: Now if you don't have a pasta maker, get ready for a work out. This dough is very elastic and takes a lot of muscle to work with. My sous chef is pretty built and I had him sweating with these when we were doing them by hand without the machine. 2 1/4 cup flour, 3 large eggs, 6 egg yellows. 1 Pinch of Salt. Organic eggs will make the flavor much deeper and better. In a mixer with the flat paddle attachment, mix ingredients until well blended and it turns into a ball. Now watch it because its strong and could burn up your mixer. Play with the speed and you might have to let it go in spurts. Remove the dough and get ready to knead.

The recipe I used asks you to knead the dough for 25 minutes. I did it to exact time the first few times I made them, but now, its a feel thing. Just knead the dough until its soft and elastic. Roll in a ball and wrap with plastic and refrigerate until you are ready. The dough will start to deteriorate quickly so you need to plan your day. I recommend working with the filling while it rests for 30 minutes and then start rolling the dough.

For the filling: Once the pumpkin is roasted peel the skins off and place in a mixing bowl. I roast a little sage in butter while the oven is still hot. I drizzle the pumpkin with honey, add the sage, salt & pepper a fistful of parmesan cheese and blend. You could add some ground nuts or other spices, but I choose to make mine very simply and let the pumpkin do the talking. Most traditional recipes call for eggs or ricotta cheese to bind the filling. I choose not to add those because one we have enough heart healthy stuff in the dough and two making them this way creates a texture that they literally melt in your mouth.

For the dough: Working in micro-batches, I pinch off a golf ball size hunk and slap, pat and roll on a floured surface. Once I get it to about 1/8" thickness, I run it through the fattest setting on the pasta machine, twice. Then I reduce the thickness to the second to smallest. On my machine its setting '3'. I run it through that setting twice. You should have a nice silky sheet of pasta! Now also you have to work fast, as the dough dries out and becomes unusable, we would hate to throw out all of those eggs! With a cookie cutter I cut out as many 'tops' and bottoms as I can and then save the scraps in plastic wrap in the fridge. On the bottoms I take a melon baller scoop of the pumpkin filling and place bulls eye on the dough. The tops being the same size don't fit because now we have to drape over the filling. So I run the tops through the pasta machine on the smallest setting to get a slightly thinner piece that is large enough to drape and seal. With your fingers, press along the edges to create a seal. Very important! If these don't seal properly they will pop open in the water and your yummy pumpkin filling will be lost. I use the cookie cutter one more time over the whole ravioli to finish & clean the edge. Continue to work in batches like this until finished! You can cook right away or store in the freezer. Many people like them served with brown butter, but I like the nutmeg cream sauce.

As you can see, these are a lot of work! And might be able to understand my disappointment when none of them sold on cow harbor day. Oh well.....this is why we try. Someone told me yesterday, that if we knew it all it would be extremely boring. 

Remember I will have the raviolis all weekend as well as the Heirloom Tomato Salad and please support the farm stand as they have just opened their pick your own pumpkin patch, which I plan to take my 2-year old daughter to, we went last year and she had a blast!

Danyell Miller
owner / executive chef
Campari Ristorante downtown Northport