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(smooth music)
(video game whooshes and pops)
Hello there.
Welcome back to another episode of "Arcade with Alvin".
Today we're gonna be taking a look at "Stardew Valley"
in particular it's Squid Ink Ravioli dish
which in the game is made with three things:
squid ink, tomato, and wheat.
It's not a real recipe
so we will try to do a little bit better.
This is cuttlefish ink. We got this at the store.
It is very dark and very thick.
One thing that ravioli probably needs is dough.
To get a pitch black dough going
we're gonna combine 300 grams of all-purpose flour,
50 grams of semolina flour and dump that onto the board
into which we're gonna indent a little cave using a bowl.
Into that, I'm gonna crack in two eggs
and a heaping tablespoon of this squid ink.
I'm not adding salt 'cause this stuff is pretty salty.
Give that a good old mix
and just slowly work that in with the fork,
bringing the flour in bit by bit
turning this egg black mixture into a paste
and eventually a dough.
This will require a lot of patience, some kneading
and maybe a substitution for Rachel
as she steps in to work her hand
as I'm getting a little tired.
After some back and forth kneading for roughly 10 minutes
you have a rough shaggy dough that has been formed.
We're gonna wrap this up and let this rest for 30 minutes,
but honestly I wasn't feeling too good
about how that dough came out.
I think it was a little dry
and we can do a little bit better than that
so I'm gonna take this opportunity
to show you a method that I like to do at home
to save you a lot of physical labor if you're lazy like me.
In a food processor we're combining the same thing,
300 grams of all-purpose flour,
50 grams of semolina flour, four eggs this time,
and a heaping tablespoon of squid ink.
Just let that run until the dough starts to get sticky
and form into a ball, and there you have it.
Pasta dough that is about 80% of the way there.
Roll that out onto a surface and knead with excess flour
until this has turned into a better, smoother,
more uniformed dough black pasta ball.
This one is a lot nicer, more soft and more supple
and kind of feels like a...
Anyway, we're gonna wrap this up
and let this hang out in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
The "Stardew Valley" recipe does call for tomatoes
so I thought it would be nice to make a tomato filling
for this ravioli.
We're gonna do a tomato confit
so I'm gonna take one pound of cherry tomatoes,
dump them into a baking pan,
cut a whole head of garlic directly in half lengthwise
and just throw that in.
Tear up about seven to 10 leaves of basil, throw that on top
and add in around two cups of olive oil.
Season that with some salt and pepper,
mix that around a little bit
and into the oven it goes at 200 to 225 degrees
for about one and a half to two whole hours.
We're essentially softening
and cooking these tomatoes in oil
so that we both end up with roasted tomatoes
as well as a beautifully infused oil
to use for other things later,
which we will first strain out
by just running this through a sieve
and letting all the bits that are left
hang out in the strainer.
This tomato herb garlic infused olive oil
can now be used to whatever culinary desires you want
as long as it's legal.
I'm gonna take about six to eight basil leaves
and smack my arms with it
because it's like nature's free cologne.
Then with basil that has not touched my arm
I'm going to take those leaves, roll them up,
and lightly chiffonade them.
With the remaining stuff
I'm going to take half of the roasted things
and blitz this with an immersion blender
until rough chunks have formed.
Now this is a little bit watery
so we're gonna strain this again as well.
There's a lot of flavor in this liquid though
so we are gonna save that for later.
Into the remaining mixture
I'm going to spoon in half a cup of whole milk ricotta
and a quarter cup of mascarpone cheese.
And to help absorb a little bit of the liquid
I'm going to shave roughly half a cup
of grated Parmigiano Reggiano.
Give this mixture a good old mix
until we have a nice tomato basily cheesy filling
that will go great with the pasta,
and this is gonna hang out in the fridge
until it's firmed up a bit.
Our pitch black dough ball has rested
so now it is time to cut its head open.
Into four pieces to be exact.
Onto a work surface
this ball goes onto a slight dusting of semolina flour,
cut into satisfying little chunks, rolled out and flattened
to be able to be pressed into the pasta machine.
I'm starting on the first and thickest setting,
which is zero,
and going all the way down to a roughly five or a six.
We need this dough to be pretty thin
so this is gonna take a little bit of time
and I like to also do a step called enveloping or laminating
where you kind of fold over the dough
once it's gone really thin back onto itself
to re-thicken it, and then run it through one more time
so you end up with a stronger and more elastic dough.
The dough has started to get pretty long
so I'm gonna cut it in half and press it back into itself
to do another lamination process and repeat that again.
But I think this dough
interacted a little bit weird with the semolina.
It was a little bit sticky
but the semolina didn't absorb enough liquid
into which I was thinking
we should have done all-purpose flour instead for the bench.
This dough doesn't really feel too great
so I'm going to try this again
with the other strips of dough that we have
which are covered in Saran wrap on the side.
This time I'm dusting the table with all-purpose flour,
pressing down the same dough, rolling this out
and doing the same exact process.
Starting from a zero we're working our way down to a five,
re-laminating that by enveloping over itself
using Rachel's help.
And doing that process one more time
till we have a nice thin,
super, super, super long piece of pasta dough.
It probably requires two people to do without tearing
or one really skilled pasta maker.
This is a ravioli mold that we got online.
I'm going to take a piece of dough
that is a little bit bigger and put it over its side.
This ravioli dough-making thing
has a little pressing mold that comes with it
so we're just following the package instructions,
pressing this little dented thing down
to apparently make holes
for our filling to have a home to live in.
I think I should have cut the dough
a little bit larger than the side.
It's starting to get a little tight
but we will try to make this work.
Into each hole
I'm going to spoon in a generous tablespoon of our filling
and then the instructions say
to place another sheet of dough over the top,
press them together.
I'm gonna use chopsticks to seal the shapes
which are coming together pretty satisfyingly,
and use a rolling pin to press down
to make sure that they have their ravioli shape.
Give this a flip, tear off the edges
and hopefully unveil the ravioli inside.
Oh, this is, er. It's getting a little sticky.
These do not seem to want to leave their metal cage.
I clearly must have done something wrong.
Ah, yes, after referring to package instructions
we were told to flour the mold itself,
that I had told myself
ain't no way this is gonna stick to that.
This dough is not sticky at all.
The dough ended up sticking, um,
so we are going to try this again one more time
while the ravioli we made is now taken by Rachel
and sent to the incinerator,
a.k.a I'm gonna cook those and eat those later off-camera
with no shame.
But we are going to repeat the entire dough process again
using Rachel's help to prove once more
that friendship is the key to making great pasta.
Laminate this, fold it over
and press it together one more time
to give it the elasticity
that makes for great, great chewy pasta dough.
Run this through.
It's quite satisfying to realize that the color of the dough
is the same color as my outfit.
Nice.
This time I have learned my lesson,
I am now flouring the dough vigorously
and cutting a piece of pasta
that is way larger than the mold,
so hopefully things go better.
Drape this on, press the dough thing in.
Still don't know what that is actually called.
And now we have even cleaner holes to put our filling inside
and fill them up all the way to the top.
Lay the pasta right on top, press together,
and satisfyingly use a rolling pin
to press out the edges of trimmings.
Let's see where this takes us.
Aha, this is a lot better.
Give one a little poke and the whole thing just comes out.
And I present to you 12 little squid ink ravioli boys.
They just lined up.
They're just sitting there like the good boys they are.
Now that they're pasta ready
it's time to get the sauce fully finished.
With the other half remaining
of the confit tomatoes and garlic,
I'm going to immersion blend them
until it turns into a creamy looking vodka-like pasta sauce.
We're gonna add this directly over a pan
over medium-low heat and add in that tomato juice
from that liquid we sifted out earlier.
To this I'm gonna add
two heaping tablespoons of the squid ink
which will immediately turn this black.
A pinch of salt to season,
a glug of red wine to enhance the tomatoey flavors
as well as combat some of the fishiness,
and around a tablespoon of sugar
to round out all the flavors in there.
Once this has started to thicken slightly
we're gonna set this to the side
and cook our dark ravioli.
In a pot of boiling water I'm gonna put
as many of these ravioli onto my spider as I can
and cook them for roughly one minute.
This is pretty thin pasta so it should cook pretty quickly.
Once those are out, this goes directly into our sauce
with the splash of the pasta water,
which has turned black at this point.
This is going to cook down until the sauce has thickened
and does coat each ravioli pretty nicely
with a soft black sheen.
And once we add a spoonful
of that tomato herb garlic oil from before,
just to finish this off for some flavor,
this is ready to be plated.
Gonna spoon these ravioli onto a plate
and accidentally add a little bit too much sauce on top
because when you look at this, this is technically
the Squid Ink Ravioli from the "Stardew Valley"
but it also looks like nothing from "Stardew Valley"
or just nothing from nothing
because it's so dark I can't really see it.
So we're gonna replate this
so we can see the shapes of each ravioli better.
Then I present to you the slightly more visible
Squid Ink Ravioli from "Stardew Valley"
which gives us a mining buff for whatever reason.
How does this actually taste?
I gotta say, this tastes pretty good.
There's salt and there's sugar, there's funkiness,
there's creaminess, there's herbaceousness.
There's all the words you could probably use
if you know how to describe food.
What I like to say, it just makes me wanna eat more
and that is the most important thing.
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(smooth music continues)