This is another hybrid recipe. The original idea came from an Italian recipe. It was quite complex - different kinds of cheese, dough made with milk and egg yolks and so on. I liked the dressing, which was sage and garlic butter with grated Parmesan cheese - "Mmm," I thought, "that sounds good."
I had never made ravioli before but I've made Russian 'vareniki', which are fairly similar. The dough for them is much simpler though - just flour and water with perhaps a little milk or yoghurt, which is much closer to an Ashy-style recipe. The fillings for vareniki are quite interesting - mashed potato and spring onion or mushroom, cottage cheese (the crumbly stuff), salt cabbage and even sour cherries, but not pumpkin. Kazakhs and Uzbeks make something similar though, and pumpkin is a popular filling. These are called manti and they are a bit bigger than vareniki, but the idea is much the same.
In short then, I thought, "I can do that. And we can skip the fancy cheese and the eggs." - so I did. And it turned out okay. I made the sage and garlic dressing and poured it over the ravioli when it was cooked, then served it up to Sveta and Oxana to test it. Sveta promptly whacked a big blob of smetana (sour cream) on hers, tried it and said, "Delicious." and at that moment I realized we had just created a true hybrid recipe. Not having thought of the sour cream, I would have used Parmesan if I had been able to find some and you might want to try that, but here's the recipe in its original form.
The quantities here should be enough for four people.
Ingredients
A quarter of an average sized pumpkin
2 potatoes
4-5 cups of flour
Either plain cold water, 50/50 water and milk or 70/30 water and yoghurt
2 or 3 tablespoons of oil
Salt
Black pepper
A chunk of butter or margarine
3 or 4 cloves of garlic
3 or 4 sage leaves (fresh or dried)
Sour cream (1 dessert-spoon for each person)
The first thing to do is peel your pumpkin and potatoes, then chop them up - 3 by 5 cm pieces for the pumpkin and 2 cm2 for the potatoes. Put them together in a pot and add about 3 cm of water. Put a lid on tightly and bring to the boil. When the lid starts rattling about, turn the heat down slightly but not too much. You need to keep up a bit of steam pressure. 10 - 15 minutes should be enough. Test the vegetables with a fork - they should be tender but not falling apart. Drain off the water and add some salt and pepper and mash. Leave it aside to cool.
For the dough, put the flour in a bowl with a quarter teaspoon of salt, stir in the oil then add liquid gradually. It's easy to add too much liquid - one minute the dough is too dry and the next it's like glue. Mix well before adding more water - especially when you think you're getting near the desired consistency (which is, by the way, sort of not too soft but not too dry either, if that's any help). It's easy to add more flour - even by kneading it in on the rolling surface - if your dough does turn out to be too soft.
Take a tennis-ball-sized lump of dough and roll it out on a well floured surface until it's about 2 mm thick. Use a knife to score it into pieces about 6 by 12 cm. Be generous here as the dough pieces will probably shrink. It's worth doing a few and trying to stuff them first before you cut all the dough and realise the bits are too small. If the dough isn't too soft and the pieces are well floured, you can stack them on top of each other ready for use. Knead the off-cuts from the first batch back into the dough for re-use.
Here's how to fill the ravioli. We'll deal with one, but in practice it's best to prepare a lot of dough pieces on a board, slap a blob of filling on each one, then close them up. First lay a dough piece on a floured surface - a chopping board is good. Use a pastry brush (or a finger) to wet all round the edge of the upper surface well - about a centimetre width. Put a teaspoon of filling in the centre of the piece and fold up the ends. Pinch well all round. (Pinch from the edges inwards - if the mixture starts leaking at this stage it's hard to fix). It will take a bit of practice but after a couple you'll be off at full speed. If you've got a helper you can set up a wee production line. Lay the ravioli on a lightly floured tray - you can pile them up, but not for long and if they get wet they will stick together.
Fill a large pot (the larger the better) with water, and bring it to the boil. When its ready add a splash of oil to stop the ravioli sticking together, then gently lower the ravioli in one by one - use a spoon or hold them by the corner and don't let go till your fingers almost touch the water. After ten or so stir very, very gently just to make sure none of the ravioli have stuck to the bottom. They will swell up and float if all goes well and should take about 15 to 20 minutes to cook. Pull one out and try it when you think they are ready. Don't let them get too soggy - the dough should be a little bit chewy. When they're ready, lift out onto a large serving plate with a slotted spoon. If you haven't got such a thing, lift them into a sieve and then onto the plate.
Heat the butter or margarine in a frying pan till it melts and starts to bubble then add the garlic, crushed with the side of a knife and roughly chopped (no need to peel it). While it's sizzling quickly shred the sage leaves if they are fresh - if dried just crumble them a bit between your fingers. Throw them in the pan and stir them in. After thirty seconds or so, pour over the ravioli. Take it to the table and allow your guests to serve themselves and add their own sour cream.