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1 cup hazelnuts
Preheat oven to 300°F. Spread hazelnuts evenly on a cookie sheet and roast in oven for 30 minutes Remove and cool. With a rough terry towel, rub skins off nuts.
Sauté garlic until translucent. Put nuts in bowl of food processor and "puree" them until they are quite fine in texture. Add cheese, garlic, egg, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Pulse until combined, but be careful not to "liquefy."
Fill and seal your ravioli.
I use this filling a lot in the winter, usually in hazelnut pasta dough!
I do a lot of experimentation with ravioli fillings and have yet to have a failure (well, that is, one that doesn't taste good!). Since I've been teaching pasta making, I have tried to stress that the only limit to what you can create is the limit you put on your imagination!
One alternative in these fillings: you can add a well-beaten (but not cooked) egg to any of these to give the filling a fuller, more rounded texture. It is, however, optional.
Remember, if you're making your own ravioli, don't just experiment with the filling. Try combining different flavored doughs with filling: I love doing a salmon filling with lemon pasta dough. Or, tomato dough with a simple combination cheese filling (Parmesan, Romano, Gouda).
Sauces, too. When I make the above Hazelnut ravioli, I use hazelnut pasta dough, but, since that can all be a bit much, I make a light lemon-butter-white wine sauce to go over them.
And think about how it's all going to look: try tomato sauce over green (spinach) ravioli! Or a nice mushroom sauce over the potato ravioli.
Posted by Debra Widera
Nutritional Info Per Serving: N/A
1/2 cup grated fresh Romano cheese
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 egg
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
Salt, pepper
Oil