The Art of the Ravioli- Wild Mushroom and Sage Ravioli with Lemon Cream Sauce

Wild Mushroom Sage Ravioli with Lemon Cream Sauce

I love garlic. I love butter. And boy do I love carbohydrates. Put them all together and what do you get? Pasta. Lots of it. There are so many ways to make pasta and so many ways to enjoy it. Lasagna, fettuccine, angel hair, penne. I love it all. But probably my favorite member of the pasta family is the ravioli.

Ravioli can be simple with sauce (straight up from the Safeway frozen section with Ragu) or super fancy (butternut squash something or other with a sauce that has three ingredients I can't pronounce. I love that you can dress it up or dress it down and it still tastes fantastic. I wanted to try to make my own raviolis with my own filling, so I concocted this Wild Mushroom Sage Ravioli from a concatenation (word of the day win!) of multiple recipes. Actually, most of this came from my own brain, with inspiration from other places, so I'll just take full credit for it.

Doesn't even require that much stuff!

Sage is an underrated herb. Don't skimp on the fresh sage! It really adds that bourgeois (another word of the day win!) flair to it, adding something to the mushrooms. It isn't very expensive. I think I got a bunch for $2.50, and it was so worth it. As far as the mushrooms, I used crimini and porcini in this particular recipe, but feel free to experiment with oyster mushrooms or shiitake. Just don't do the regular boring old white mushrooms. Lame sauce. You can do better than that! Mushrooms are cheap, so get some good ones. I used dehydrated porcini and rehydrated them in a bowl of water before using them. They worked great and I think they added something to the ravioli.

Important note on constructing the ravioli. The first time I made this recipe, I made my own pasta dough and attempted to make the ravioli from scratch. That's when I found out that a ravioli press really is necessary. As this blog is called the Tiny Kitchen Adventures and not the Fully Stocked Kitchen With Every Single Piece of Equipment You Could Ever Need Adventures, I definitely don't have a ravioli press. I don't think its physically possible to roll out the dough thin enough to make good ravioli, so I substituted wonton wrappers. They worked like a charm and saved a bunch of time.

Let me know in the comments if you make the recipe, or if you have another great idea for ravioli!

So tasty, so fancy, so easy. And vegetarian, if you're into that sort of thing.

Wild Mushroom Sage Ravioli with Lemon Cream Sauce
Ravioli
2 tbl olive oil
1 package dehydrated porcini mushrooms, finely diced
4 oz crimini mushrooms, finely diced 
1 small onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbl fresh chopped sage
2 tsp lemon juice
2/3 cup ricotta
salt and pepper to taste
wonton wrappers

Lemon Cream Sauce
3 tbl butter
2 tbl olive oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
3 tbl lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Saute diced mushrooms, onion, and garlic in a large skillet until tender, about 5 minutes. Cool slightly. In a
large bowl, combine mushroom mix, sage, lemon juice and ricotta. Add salt and pepper to taste. Put approximately 1 1/2 tbl mushroom-ricotta mix in the center of a wonton wrapper square. Wet the edges of the square and place another square over the top. Crimp all edges firmly with a fork. Repeat with the remaining mushroom-ricotta mix.

They are done when they float.

Melt butter in a medium sauce pan. Add olive oil. Saute onion in butter and oil until tender. Add chicken broth, heavy cream and lemon juice. Bring to a boil, then simmer until reduced by half and mixture begins to thicken. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. Add three or four ravioli at a time, making sure they do not stick to the bottom of the pot. Boil ravioli until they float to the top of the pot, approximately 2 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon. Repeat with remaining ravioli.

Serve ravioli with Lemon Cream Sauce. Garnish with fresh sage.

Note- if you want, you can freeze ravioli before you boil them. Store in an airtight container or ziploc bag in the freezer. To serve, boil for 5 minutes.