King Crab Ravioli
K, time to present the next recipe in ABCs of Pasta, and this one will, of course, revolve around a letter that teenagers and social media stars all around are very familiar with, K.
There aren’t any specific pasta dishes that begin with K, so I think this is another case where we need to have a look at a specific ingredient to highlight. Kale, trendy but very healthy, kimchi, nice but it’s not Italian, kidney beans, great in chili, Kit-Kat, a very popular candy, ketchup…keep that as far away from my pasta as possible, please and thank you.
However, in the end, I decided to feature a protein that has a bit of royal recognition, king crab. Now that I live in the US Pacific Northwest, you can bet that there’s an abundance of delicious crab and king crab legs at my disposal, so it seems fitting to try to use that for a tasty ravioli. As for sauce, I think a simple and light brown butter sauce would be nice because what is better friends with crab than butter?
Serves 4
For the Filling:
1 pound king crab meat (picked through for any shells)*
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 lemon, juiced
Seafood seasoning (such as Old Bay), to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste
For the Pasta and sauce:
400g (14oz) 00 flour, or all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
4 eggs
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt, for pasta cooking water
8 tbsp unsalted butter
*Budget too tight for king crab? Then any kind of crab meat will work…as long as it’s not imitation crab.
To make the filling, combine all ingredients in a medium sized bowl until just combined, seasoning with salt, pepper, and seafood seasoning. Be careful not to overmix. Set aside while you work on the pasta.
(I prefer to do this next part by hand, but the food processor definitely gets it done faster)
To make the pasta, dump the flour, eggs and oil into a food processor then pulse until a shaggy dough forms. Dump the dough out onto a floured surface, then knead until it becomes smooth and elastic. Cover the dough with plastic wrap, then let it rest for at least 20 minutes.
Once rested, cut the dough into 4 and, working with one dough piece at a time and keeping the rest covered, use a pasta roller or rolling pin to roll out the pasta into a thin, even sheet. Use a 4-inch round cookie cutter to stamp out rounds.
Scoop out 2 ounce portions of filling and place that into the center of half of your pasta discs. Place the remaining discs on top, then use your fingers to press out the air around the filling and squeeze the edges together.
To cook, heat wide saucepan of salted water to a gentle simmer, do not let it boil. Working in batches if necessary, lower your ravioli into the water and cook for about 3-4 minutes, or until the ravioli floats to the surface of the water, then drain.
For the brown butter sauce, heat the butter in a wide skillet over medium heat and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the butter smells nutty and you can see brown specs throughout, be very careful not to let the butter burn. Once browned, add the ravioli to the butter, toss to coat, and cook for a minute longer. Then serve.
