Around this time last year, I was kind of obsessed with watching the show Worst Cooks in America. In one of the episodes, they made ravioli uovo, and I knew I had to try it. It’s a large ravioli with an intact egg yolk inside. When you cut open the pasta, the yolk runs and mixes with the sauce. It’s hard to find the dish in restaurants so I decided to make it while I was at my aunt’s house, since she has a pasta maker. We used the recipe from the show, which I copied here, except we skipped the bacon and sage and we already had the pasta dough from the day before. Recipe credit goes to Chef Anne Burrell of the Food Network. The photo of me was taken by my girlfriend, Morgan.
Ingredients
4 slices bacon
10 leaves plus 2 sprigs fresh sage
Kosher salt
2 cups ricotta cheese
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano, plus more for garnish
1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 large eggs plus 4 large egg yolks (all heirloom or organic eggs)
All-purpose flour, as needed
Pasta Dough, rolled for ravioli, recipe follows
Semolina flour, as needed
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1/2 cups chicken stock
Chef Anne’s All-Purpose Pasta Dough:
1/2 pound all-purpose flour
2 whole eggs, plus 1/2 egg yolk (all heirloom or organic eggs)
1/8 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon water or more if needed
Kosher salt
Directions
To a saute pan over medium-high heat, add the bacon and render until crispy. Remove from the heat and place onto a paper-towel-lined plate. To the bacon fat, add the sage leaves and fry until crispy, about 30 seconds. Season the sage leaves with salt. Finely chop the bacon, crumble the sage and set aside. Reserve for garnish.
In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, Parm, parsley and 2 whole eggs; mix well and sprinkle with salt.
Dust a clean work surface lightly with all-purpose flour and lay out 2 sheets of pasta about 12 inches long; brush lightly with water. Equally space 4 dollops of the ricotta mixture on one of the pasta sheets. Then use a spoon to make a nest or small hole in the center of each dollop. Carefully separate the remaining eggs and put a yolk in each ricotta nest; the ricotta should lovingly nestle each yolk (if a yolk breaks, scoop it out with a spoon and don’t use it).
Cover the ricotta nests and egg yolk with the remaining pasta sheet. Use your index fingers to press around each ricotta nest to seal the edges. Then use a fluted ring cutter or dough roller to cut around each ravioli (they should be 3 to 4 inches in diameter). Reserve the ravioli on a tray generously dusted with semolina.
Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. In a large saute pan, melt the butter and chicken stock. Add the sage sprigs and season with salt. Bring this to boil and reduce to simmer.
Add the ravioli to the boiling water and cook for about 2 minutes, no more. Using a spider and slotted spoon, carefully transfer the ravioli from the water to the pan with butter and chicken stock and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. If the sauce reduces too much, add a few drops of the pasta cooking water. The sauce should cling to the ravioli in a buttery hug.
Transfer the ravioli to serving plates, one per plate. Spoon a little extra sauce over each one, and finish with a sprinkey-dink of grated Parm, the bacon and then the fried sage.
Get the pasta dough recipe here.
Cooking is a great activity to do during a storytelling session. I would love to help you share yours and document all of life’s little moments. Find out more about Storytelling sessions and tell me about your adventure at [email protected].
