Ravioli with Bacon Blue Cheese Sauce

I came up with this recipe for a contest I found on FoodBuzz. Kraft foods was promoting their Buitoni ravioli line. I didn't win, but it got quite a bit of attention from the FoodBuzz community. My family certainly thought this sauce was a winner. I've modified it slightly since the contest.

This creamy sauce, inspired by bacon blue cheeseburgers, is quite rich. I have been warned by various recipe books not to make pasta sauce with blue cheese. The flavors are just too strong, they say so, of course I had to prove them wrong.

I'll admit, this is best eaten on the day you make it. Letting it sit in the refrigerator will make the blue cheese flavor too strong for pasta. But I love blue cheese. I love bacon. I love pasta.

Death to conventional wisdom! Bring on the flavor!

This recipe was designed with meat ravioli in mind, but I suspect it will work with any good pasta.

Equipment needed
Saute pan
Kitchen knife
Spatula
Sauce pans, one medium, one large
plastic wrap
Measuring spoons
Measuring cups


Ingredients

1 lb. bacon
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup ricotta cheese
4 tablespoons blue cheese, crumbled (or more if you like)
1 cup heavy cream
1 /2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried chopped parsley, or 1 tsp freshly chopped parsley
1 /4 tsp ground black pepper
1 egg, beaten (optional)
2 tsp lemon juice
additional salt, pepper, and chopped parsley to taste
18 oz package of meat Ravioli, fresh or frozen

Directions

Remove the egg from the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature while you prepare the rest of the sauce. The egg is optional. It will add a bit more thickness and body, but you may find you don't need it.

Cook the bacon over medium heat until crispy. Chop into small pieces and set aside. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the melted bacon fat.

Add the melted bacon fat and the butter to a medium saucepan over medium low heat. Melt the butter. Add the ricotta cheese and 2 Tbl of the blue cheese, stirring with a whisk until melted and smooth. Add the cream and stir until smooth and well combined. Remove from heat and stir in the bacon, salt, parsley, and pepper.

Beat the egg, if using, and add it to the cheese mixture, mixing thoroughly. Return to the heat and gently cook, stirring constantly, until it thickens and starts to get bubbly, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the lemon juice and remove from the heat. Add more salt, pepper, and parsley to taste. Cover the sauce with plastic wrap, so the plastic wrap is just touching the surface, to avoid a skin forming on the top while the pasta cooks.

Cook the ravioli according to the package directions. Drain the cooked ravioli and add the sauce, mixing gently, and covering each piece with sauce. Pour the ravioli into individual serving bowls and garnish with the remaining bacon, blue cheese, parsley and additional freshly ground black pepper.

Makes 4 main dish servings


Picture by Dominic Morel

How to Cook Dried Beans

Dried beans are great food storage items, but they do take a little bit of time and forethought to prepare.

Pour out the beans you want to use and sort through them. You don't want a small stone to ruin the dish, or someone's teeth.

Soaking the Beans

Ideally, you want to soak the beans in water, for at least 8 hours, or overnight. Make sure you're using a very large bowl for this. Dried beans will soak up quite a bit of water, increasing their size by nearly double in some cases. You don't want to wake up in the morning to an overflowing pot of beans.

There is a “quick soak” method, where you bring the beans to a boil for ten minutes, cover, and remove from the heat, and let them soak for one hour. It works, but I seem to get the most consistent results with an overnight soak.

Either way you soak them, drain and rinse the beans thoroughly, afterward.

Cooking the Beans

Put the beans in a large bowl and cover with a generous amount of cold water. Add a dash or two of salt and bring them to a rapid boil, boiling for ten minutes.

Reduce the heat to low, cover, and gently simmer the beans until tender. They should feel soft in the center when squeezed.

The amount of time you'll need to simmer them depends on the bean. Most dried beans, like Red kidney beans and black beans, take about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Adzuki beans will be ready in only 45 minutes, while chickpeas can take up to 2 hours.

If you want to prepare beans ahead of time, soak them, put them in a plastic freezer bag, and freeze them. You can thaw them, and finish cooking them, when you're ready.

I keep a stock of dried and canned beans on hand in my food storage. When I have time, I'll use the dried ones. They soak up loads of flavor when cooked over time in soups and sauces. On a weeknight, or whenever else I'm in a hurry, I'll use the canned ones.

Picture by Leonardo Borlot

Grilled Tofu – Soy, Spice and Smoke

I was recently perusing my copy of Personal Trainer: Cooking, for the Nintendo DS, and I came across an ingredient I'd never heard of before: grilled tofu. The program assured me that it was available in local Japanese markets.

I live out near the west desert in Utah. I don't have a local Japanese market.

It got me thinking, though. What would grilled tofu be like? Broiled tofu is pretty good, but it's really soft, even when you get extra firm tofu. Hmmm. With Labor day weekend coming up, and my foodie brain churning with ideas, I thought I'd experiment.

Tofu has a lot of water in it. The higher the water content, the softer the tofu. I wanted something a little meatier for the grill, so I'd have to get rid of some of the water.

Starting with a block of extra firm tofu, I wrapped it in a clean dish towel and put a weight on it. In just moments my dishtowel was soaked. I couldn't believe how much water I had gotten out in such a short about of time. Switching to a dry towel I repeated the process, a few times, actually. Once the deluge slowed, and I was satisfied that I'd gotten as much as I could out without destroying the tofu, I was ready for the next step.

I read somewhere that freezing tofu will get more water out so, next I wrapped the block in wax paper, then in foil, and then I sealed it up in a freezer bag, making sure to get as much air out of the bag as I could, and stuck the block in my freezer for a few days.

After removing the frozen tofu and allowing it to thaw, sure enough, I got more water out of it. A lot of water. The texture had become more dense and it reminded me of a sponge. Pressing out as much water as I could, I started thinking about how to flavor the tofu. Would marinating the tofu in soy sauce and spices pull the flavors into the tofu, like it does when you brine meat? I decided to give it a try.

I put the tofu block in a container for marinating. I didn't want to add a bunch of water back into it, nor use up a bunch of soy sauce, so I starting pouring some over the top, little by little. I was right to think of this as a sponge. It sucked up the soy sauce just like it was one. Still concerned with adding back too much liquid, I stopped with the soy sauce and spread a simple seasoning salt rub on the tofu block, just like I might for a steak, and set it aside while I fired up the grill.

After the grill was properly heated, cleaned and oiled, it was time for the tofu. First, I made sure I added some soaked hickory chips to add some smoke flavor. Next, I cut the tofu block into smaller slabs, each about 1/2 inch thick, and placed them on the grill. I was pleased at how easily the coveted “grill marks” appeared, and the tofu cooked up to a toasty finish with only a few minutes grilling on each side.

The texture was meaty, somewhere between firm fish and bread. The flavor was pretty good, too, but it could have had a bit more seasoning. The subtle smokiness was a nice touch. Interestingly, the flavor didn't improve much when I drizzled a little soy sauce on top.

By itself, I don't think the process was worth it, but I suspect that as an ingredient in some other dish, grilled tofu might perfect. A stir fry was my first thought, but now I'm thinking, why not smothered in mushrooms on a hamburger bun? Maybe I'll try that the next time.