Asparagus Ravioloni

Pansotti, ravioloni, whatever. Filled pasta shapes with a yummy filling. If there's a true Italian reading this or a pasta connoisseur, let me know what they should be called. Nevertheless, here's a surefire meal to get a good number of your dishes dirty. Filled fresh pasta takes time and effort to prepare but it's worth it. If you have a kitchen assistant, make good use of them!

This recipe progresses assuming you have your pasta dough ready. You can make the dough, instructions here, while you are boiling the artichokes (or buy pre-fabricated fresh pasta sheets). While the dough rests, prepare the veggies and roll pasta when the asparagus is boiling (cover so that it doesnt dry while you prepare the filling). You can leave bacon completely out (add some salt to the filling then), or replace it with kalamata olives. Use 10+ olives according to taste. I suggest adding some first and tasting if it needs more. If you want more chunky feel to the filling, dice some of the cooked asparagus or bacon very finely and add to the filling after it's been trough the mixer. If your filling is too runny, add more parmesan to make it a stiffer. The filling should not be too moist as it has to stay put in the middle when you make the ravioloni shapes.

You can add different type of vegetables to sauté, and some herbs or seasoning. I purposefully kept it very simple for not to clash with the fine taste of the filling. I surmise some smooth sauce with not-too-complicated/pungent a taste would be fine. This recipe makes a light meal for 2.

• 250 gr asparagus
• 2 largish jerusalem artichokes
• 2 summer onions with green stalks
• 1-2 garlic glove(s)
• 8-12 mini plum or cherry tomatos
• 15-20 large basil leaves (filling + a few for the saute)
• Pasta sheets (1 large egg dough here)
• Half a lemon
• Black pepper, salt
• 170 gr bacon 
• 1 dl + grated parmesan (filling + garnish)
• Olive oil for sauteing

1. Peel Jerusalem artichokes, put them into cold water and to boil. Add a pinch of salt and a touch of lemon. Boil until a fork easily sinks in but the chokes are not too soggy. Put in cold water to cool and set aside.






2. Put a large pan with water to boil. Snap the hard bit off (discard) and peel the asparagus. If you are using very thin asparagus, dont bother to peel, just rinse well. Cut the tip off and set aside. When water boils add asparagus stalks to the pan with a pinch of salt and a squirt of lemon. Let lightly boil until a fork sinks in, then drain.






3. While artichokes/asparagus boil slice summer onions and garlic. Divide onion cuttings into 2 equal piles, light end to the filling and the darker ends to the sauté.







4. Halve tomatos and put aside with asparagus tips, garlic and green onion stalks.








5. Grate parmesan and set aside.









6. Trim fat off the bacon and cut very finely first to strips and then very small squares.








7. Fry the bacon until it is done and lightly brown here and there. Put the pan aside, don't rinse as you can use it for the vegetable sauté later and make use of meat juices in the sauté.







8. Drain the artichokes and put with asparagus, bacon, basil leaves and one of the summer onions into a bowl and puré with a stick mixer. Grind black pepper into the mass, approx. 0,5 tsp or to taste.







9. Add a generous squirt of lemon and a good pinch of parmesan. Mix again. Taste for salt (I didnt add any as the bacon is salty enough). Put your big pasta kettle to boil.

10. Spread the pasta sheets on a slightly floured surface and cut in squares. You can make for instance 6-8 big ones or ~14 smaller ones. Bigger ones are faster to make but the filling/dough ratio might not be ideal. Fill a cup with water and put it next to pasta sheets.





11. Add the filling in the middle.









12. Lightly moist the sides with a brush. Dont make the sides too wet or the dough doesnt stick well.

13. Pull the other side to overlap so that the borders are as even as possible, grab it from both sides with your fingers and flip it so that the intact side points downwards. Gently press the sides together, working from bottom to top. If you added too much filling and it starts to spill out, just press it through, wipe away and press the sides gently but firmly together.



14. When the water boils, put the ravioloni in and let boil lightly for a few (3-5) mins. Do not let water boil too vigorously or your ravioloni might break. You can carefully cut a piece off the pasta and taste for readiness. Or save some excess cuts, press them together, put in with ravioloni and fish out for checking. Drain, set aside.

15. When pasta is ready, quickly saute onion, garlic and asparagus tips in olive oil. After a few minutes, add tomato halves and saute until they look a bit suffered. Add a light sprinkle of salt if you washed the pan after frying the bacon.

16. Mix pasta with sauted asparagus tips and onion on the pan, rip a few basil leaves over and, turn gently and let warm up.






17. Scoop on a plate, garnish and serve.

Sit down and enjoy with a good wine, you have deserved it after all that hard work!

Roasted Bell Peppers, Capers and Taglioni

This dish has no particular story attached to it. Except for I like roasted bell peppers. Just the other day, I begun to fancy roasted bell peppers with capers. This is what I ended up with.

Summer is the best season to toy with bell peppers -or paprika as we call it- as it's not very expensive and the veggies are in good condition. Obviously, bell peppers are not native to Finland, and those grown in greenhouses year around are very expensive. So most of the variety is brought from abroad. Use of bell pepper was quite minimal in Finland until 1960-70's from where it became more widely known and is now an everyday veggie.

I heard a story dating back to early seventies from the more rural parts of Finland. Someone's granpa saw a bell pepper in a store, gave it a good hard long look and after fumbling it a while, placed it into his shopping basket. At home he sat by the table, grabbed his knife and cut a bit off it.  To his astonishment, it wasnt like an apple ,"Gosh, it's hollow!". Then he cut a fine piece off it, chewed and spat out with a grimace. And hurled it away to the wall!

Anyways, I'll stop gabbing and move onto the recipe. Have a nice weekend everyone!

Roasting Bell Peppers

1. Set the oven grill to max. Halve bell peppers, remove stem and seeds. Place them over an oven proof grill. Mine's a dish with a grill, I put some water on the bottom so that juices wont burn and cause smoky smell.  Roast the bell peppers for about 10 minutes or when the peels bubble and turn black. Turn the oven dish around half way as many ovens dont roast evenly.

2. That's the bell peppers roasted. Now cover with a towel and let cool down a bit (but not to get cold).

3. Peel the bell peppers while they are warm, the peel will loosen easily. It may be more sticky at the sides where the peel didnt roast too good but you can leave thin strips of peel intact, if they sit tight.

This is what you should get. Now the bell peppers are ready to use in marinade, salad or a sauce.

Roasted Bell Peppers, Capers and Taglioni

I suggest you make the pasta boil-ready before beginning with the bell peppers. Or you can crank it into ribbons while the bell peppers roast and rest. How to make fresh pasta you can read here. Boil the pasta before making the sauce, drain, put back into kettle and lid on it. Set aside.

Cream used in this recipe is something known in Finland as "cooking cream", lighter, thicker cream-like substance. It doesnt curd if you boil it with salt. This recipe makes for one person.

• 2 roasted bell peppers
• 1 red onion
• 2 garlic gloves
• 1 dl cream
• 2-3 tbsp capers
• Oil
• Pepper, pinch of salt

1. Dice onions, cut garlic and cut the bell peppers into fine strips.








2. Saute onions until lightly softened and transparent. Add bell peppers and stir and mix on a medium heat for a few mins. Add the capers and stir for a minute more. Add cream and let lightly simmer until the sauce thickens (a few minutes).





3. Taste for salt, add pepper or some herbs if you like. Mix with pasta on the pan (I use the kettle to allow more vigorous mixing). Garnish and serve!

Macaroni Bake and Cherry Pie

Here's a macaroni bake I conjured up for my daily lunch. This is what most Finns of my age grew up with! Good stuff for making in large quantities and then freezing for later use. Normally macaroni bake is quite simple, and this isn't much more complex, but I added bell peppers and blue cheese for extra taste and colour. If you want additional softness with bell peppers, you might lightly sauté them before adding them to the mix but it is by no means necessary. Also other stuff might suitable to the mix, such as corn, peas and tomatos. For spicing you might use black and white pepper, chilli, marjoram, garlic and paprika, for instance.

For this you need macaroni, mince meat, milk, eggs, some vegetables and cheese. Macaroni and mince should be about equal amounts. For 400 gr (14.1 oz) unboiled macaroni you need 7 dl (1.23 pints) milk and 3 eggs.
Boil macaronis and fry mince that while. Remember to fry the meat in small enough portions, so that it will actually fry and not boil. I mean this. If there's too much meat in the pan, the juice coming out of meat wont vaporize but makes an area of liquid on the bottom and the meat will boil in it. Depending on meat you are frying, it should cover only 1/3-1/4 of the bottom of the pan.
Slice the bell peppers in small dices, and break the blue cheese in small crumbs. Mix boiled macaroni, fried mince and bell pepper dices together and pour into an oven proof casserole. Whisk milk, spices, eggs and cheese crumbs together. Pour over macaroni mix and stir. Bake the casserole at 200c (Celsius) for an hour. In Finland, ketchup goes traditionally with this food.

This is my favourite berry pie. Cherries! Oh! Ah! Traditionally this kind of crust goes with blue berries but I find it very good with cherries too. The crust is simple to make (I found this recipe off a flour bag ages ago):

4 eggs
3 - 4 dl sugar (use more sugar for sour berries)
4 tsp vanilla sugar
6 dl wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
300 gr butter (melted)
2 dl milk or juice

The recipe says to use 6 dl berries but I used 2 L cherries. Slice and take the stone off before you do anything else.

1. Beat eggs & sugar together.
2. Mix the dry stuffs
3. Add flour etc., butter and milk/juice. Stir until even.
4. Cover an oven sheet with parchment paper. Pour the dough over it and add the berries evenly.
5. Bake at 200c, for 25-35.