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It’s ravioli week!!! After an epic ravioli-making session that filled most of Sunday evening, I’ve got three ravioli recipes for you. Last night I covered spinach and ricotta ravioli. Tonight’s recipe, ravioli no. 2, is walnut ravioli with a vodka cream sauce. I first read a recipe for walnut ravioli a few months ago, and bookmarked it. I had walnut ‘meat’ as a sandwich filling at Vida Vegan Con (vegan blogger conference) and liked it. I don’t know how accurate it is as a meat sub, but I’m guessing not very, as I liked it and I don’t normally like mock meats. Anyway, I thought walnuts would make a nice filling for a hearty ravioli, but I ran into a major setback on ravioli-making night when I realised I didn’t have enough walnuts and as it was Sunday evening most shops were shut! Luckily my Taste Tester (my non vegan boyfriend, who’s the subject of my experiments this Mofo) was able to obtain some slivered almonds, and I ended up using about half walnuts and half almonds. I mixed them with some spices and also a bit of olive oil and breadcrumbs to give them some extra flavour. They came out quite garlicky but nice! The Taste Tester and I agreed that the vodka cream sauce was our favourite of the three sauces I made.
Walnut Ravioli with a Vodka Cream Sauce
Makes approx 3 dozen ravioli
Ingredients
- 2.5 cups flour or preferably ’00’ grade pasta flour
- 1 cup water
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 recipe walnut filling, recipe follows
- 1 recipe vodka cream sauce, recipe follows
Instructions
- To make the ravioli dough, form a mound of flour on a clean counterspace.
- Form a well in the flour and fill with the oil and some of the water.
- Mix the water into the flour, and repeat step 2 (forming a well, filling with water, and mixing the flour and water together) until all the water is incorporated into the dough.
- Knead the dough for a minute or two and form into a ball. Cover in cling film (Saran wrap) and leave to rest 30 minutes. In the meantime, you can prepare the filling.
- To roll out the ravioli dough, divide the dough into 3 sections.
- Sprinkle some flour on a clean counterspace. Put the first third of the dough on the counter, sprinkle some more flour on top, and roll out the dough with a rolling pin, as thin as you can roll it. If you have a pasta machine, follow the instructions on your machine to roll out the dough.
- Place 12 spoonfuls of the walnut filling on the dough, stopping half along the length of the piece of dough, and keeping it as evenly spaced as possible. You’ll probably want two rows of 6. Now, fold the piece of dough in half, so the half without fillings on is resting on top of the piece with the fillings.
- Press down and around each dollop of filling, pressing the air out and sealing the two pieces of dough together, creating pieces of ravioli.
- Now, with a knife or ravioli cutter, cut out squares of ravioli along each piece of filling.
- Repeat steps 7-9 each each other piece of dough. Cook the ravioli in boiling water as soon as possible after cutting them. If you’re not going to cook them immediately, you can freeze them.
- To cook ravioli, place in a pot of boiling water. The ravioli is ready when it floats to the surface (which should happen in 2-3 minutes). Serve with vodka cream sauce, recipe follows.
Walnut Filling
Ingredients
- 125 g (3/4 cup) walnut
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
- 1 tsp chopped fresh sage
- Dash dried Italian herb mix
- Dash salt
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp breadcrumbs
Instructions
- Chop in food processor until the walnuts are very finely chopped
Vodka cream sauce
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs, optional
- 28 oz (800g) tinned chopped tomato
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) vegan single cream / plain soy creamer (or make your own cashew cream if you can’t easily buy vegan cream where you live)
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) vodka
- 2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil, optional
Instructions
- Heat olive oil over medium high heat. When the oil is hot, add the diced onion and cook until the onion begins to brown slightly. Add dried Italian herbs if desired.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for 4 to 5 minutes over medium heat; it should be simmering gently.
- Add the cream to the pan of tomato sauce and cook for an additional 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add the vodka to the saucepan, and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes. Add the basil if desired.
- Remove the sauce from the heat.
Ravioli Part 1 of 3: Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli
5 thoughts on “Walnut Ravioli with a Vodka Cream Sauce”
Moar pasta! Excellent news! And if your pastas couldn’t get any better, you managed to up the ante by putting booze in it. Damn, that looks fine. Is there garlic bread as well?!
Everything’s better with booze in!! ;) Aw damn, there wasn’t garlic bread but now I wish there was! Although I couldn’t have eaten any more, after all the ravioli I was stuffed!
Ohhh, so creative! I love the look and sound of this one!
Holy Crap! This is delicious!
My lovely wife and I made the walnut ravioli with Vodka Cream sauce, also made some simple ravioli stuffed with home made vegan cheese ( Almond flour, garlic, lemon juice, salt, water, olive oil, blended ) mixed with random green herbs and used the same sauce. Terrific! We used won-ton wrappers and made 4 ravioli with each wrapper ( lazy ..). Anyways, this set of recipes is now added to my all time favourites list. Thank you!!
Thanks Dave, your comment made my day! I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe so much. Thanks for letting me know you guys liked it! And there’s no shame in using wonton wrappers! ;)