- Hey, I'm John Kanell.
And today, on Preppy Kitchen,
We're making an indulgent, delicious lobster ravioli.
So let's get started.
First off, there's a little bit of prep work.
I have three cloves of garlic, minced.
I also have 12 ounces of pre-cooked lobster.
But if you're buying a raw lobster,
you can prepare it so easily.
Just cut down the spine of the tail
and pop that into the oven for a few minutes
and drench it in butter.
Set it aside to cool, and it'll be perfect.
Lobsters for ravioli seems so fancy
and it's beyond delicious,
but it's actually really easy.
I'm gonna show you two different ways to make this,
one with store-bought wonton wrappers
and one with fresh pasta dough.
You can let me know if you'd like to see
that recipe on the channel.
I'll show you how to prepare it with a fresh dough
and with the wonton wrappers.
For this recipe,
you'll need 12 ounces of cooked lobster meat.
I'm gonna give it a chop really quickly.
And you have a couple options here.
You can go to the store and buy cooked lobster meat,
or you can get lobster tails
and just broil them for six to 12 minutes.
Just like with shrimp,
you'll see them go from translucent
and, you know, grayish
to being pink and more opaque.
They'll also be a bit firmer.
I would err on the side of underbaking them,
because they're gonna get boiled, too,
so you don't want them to be too firm.
Let's give these a chop.
We want smaller pieces
because they have to fit into our raviolis.
So we can use tails and claws for this.
Really, any lobster meat will be delicious.
So nice small pieces, just like this.
If you're not a lobster fan
but you're watching this video anyways,
thank you, I appreciate that.
But here's the deal,
you could use crab for this,
or you could use seared scallops, too.
In fact, if you wanted to,
you could even do like a medley of all of those things.
They have similar textures
and they're flavors that play really well together
and in the sauce we're gonna make.
Oh, we're gonna make a sauce for this ravioli
that's gonna break your heart.
Finish chopping this up.
If you would like some more lobster
or fish recipes on the channel,
you let me know, I am all ears.
I kind of wanna make like an amazing lobster roll.
I'm always tempted by them,
but so often, they are disappointing, which is not cool.
But I know we can do one really well together.
Into a big bowl,
we're gonna add all of our delicious lobster meat.
One cup, or 250 grams, of whole milk ricotta.
Oh my gosh, I love ricotta,
and it's so versatile in sweet and savory things.
Here, it's creamy and slightly sweet
and really complements the dish.
I also want two teaspoons of lemon zest.
This will help wake things up and add some brightness.
Now, I'm adding 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt.
This will give it some balance.
And 1/4 teaspoon of freshly cracked black pepper.
Stir this together.
We're really gonna have the ricotta be the suspension
that everything else is floating in.
Once this is all stirred together,
we're gonna give it a taste, just to check the seasoning.
I'm adding a pinch more salt
and just a little bit more lemon zest.
If you wanted, you could add some herbs in this filling.
We're gonna have our herbs in the sauce,
really amping up the flavor,
but both are options.
That's nice.
Okay, I'm popping my filling into the fridge
while we roll our pasta dough out.
If you're using wonton wrappers,
go ahead and skip ahead to the mark below.
(bell dings)
My pasta dough has rested.
Oh my gosh, look at this beautiful color
from the yolks of the eggs.
Using my hands, I'm gonna stretch this
into about 1/4 of an inch thick square.
Growing up, we had a hand-cranked pasta roller.
I'm using my mixer attachments today.
Loosely cover your pasta dough
while we work with our one sheet.
And I also have some semolina at the ready.
You can sprinkle it on occasionally.
It just helps the pasta dough not stick.
Lowest setting, widest roller.
We're gonna feed this through and have some fun.
So feed it through twice each time.
And then, we go down one notch
until we get to eight.
Should be nice and thin.
This is why, when you make pasta dough,
it really has to rest for at least an hour,
but preferably like two to three.
If you were rolling this out by hand,
patience, my friend, patience.
And err on the side of being okay with it looking rustic,
'cause it's hard to get it to be perfectly flat.
It's been fed through a few times.
I'm gonna sprinkle this
with just a little bit of semolina flour on either side
so it keeps going through smoothly.
It's important to start on a low setting
and work your way up slowly
so the pasta is just getting
kind of like massaged into place
instead of forced.
And notice I'm not pulling it through,
I'm just letting it be fed.
Okay, this is getting very long, but it's starting to stick.
So once again, we're gonna add a little more semolina flour.
Towards the end, your pasta's gonna start
getting really long and also almost transparent.
The very last pass-through,
I loved how kind of slow and just nice this was.
I rolled one more piece out
and I did a little bit of tugging,
so they're exactly six inches wide for both pieces.
Just using a pizza cutter,
I'm gonna trim a little bit of excess
so that they line up nicely.
Now, we have two choices on how to fill these.
If you're using big sheets of fresh pasta,
like we just made,
you're gonna grab about a teaspoon and a half
to two teaspoons of filling.
This makes a six-inch-wide sheet.
You can't really go crazy filling it.
You want about an inch border all the way around,
so space your little dots of filling about two inches apart.
It'll make sense when you're rolling this out
and doing it yourself.
Just work in a little assembly line.
And we'll be folding that big piece over.
You probably guessed,
the enemy of ravioli makers is air bubbles.
You don't wanna have a big bubble of air
that expands while it's boiling and pops the ravioli open.
That would let hot water in
and really like kill the flavor.
Now, we're going to use a brush and some water
and just paint the edges over.
This will glue everything together.
You can also pat the filling down just a bit and shape it,
because we wanna make sure there's no little pockets
where air can hide out.
Now, we're gonna carefully lift our other piece of pasta
and place it over the top.
This piece of pasta has a little bit of stretching to do,
so I'm going to marry one side to the other.
Now, we're gonna gently press this together
and also get all the air out that you can.
Really be conscientious of no air bubbles, if possible.
If you want to be extra fancy and make ravioli more often,
you can buy a ravioli press.
If you're using wonton wrappers, this is so much easier,
I'll show you in a second,
'cause you're doing them individually.
If you paint yourself into a corner
and the air has nowhere to go,
just poke a little hole
where you'll be cutting the ravioli to press the air out.
The important thing is there's no hole in the pocket itself.
Now, you can cut those with a knife, a pizza cutter,
or a ravioli cutter.
Just cut them right down the middle.
Ah, just like that, so easy.
And this also helps seal the edge.
These guys can hang out on the counter and dry out a bit.
It actually helps the texture.
If you're using wonton wrappers for your ravioli,
just open your package, unwrap some of them.
You can keep them covered
with plastic or a paper towel while you work
so they don't dry out.
And then we're gonna fill each of them, again,
with about two teaspoons of the filling.
You don't want them to burst,
so really be mindful of any air pockets
that could be created,
and make sure to give them a good border.
These both taste delicious.
I will say, if you go to the extra trouble
of making your own pasta dough,
one benefit is you can make giant batches
and freeze them for later.
It's one of my mom's tricks.
If she's making something like spanakopita,
which takes, you know, a little bit of work to do,
she'll make one for enjoying now
and make one for later to freeze.
She's thrown entire dinner parties
with the contents of her freezer.
Press down a little bit so it's not too big of a mound.
You don't wanna stretch the dough
to the point where it breaks.
We're gonna brush the border with water.
This will help seal them together.
Don't go crazy, though.
Just enough water to seal it.
Now, place the second wonton wrapper on top.
Create a seal by pressing.
As you stretch it out a bit,
make sure to press any air out.
I would work in batches and seal a few at a time.
You just don't want your wrapper,
be it the pasta or the wonton wrapper,
to dry out and crack.
And if you have any helpers in the kitchen
who claim that they can't cook,
this is a great activity for them,
as long as they have clean hands.
Actually, I think the easiest way,
if you're just starting out with this,
is to do them in your hand.
I'll tell you why.
It gives you really good control of the sealing process.
And you can make them one at a time, like this.
Filling, little bit of water on the edge.
Now, this is where it comes in handy.
When you seal them up,
you can really guide them from both sides.
Don't mind my fingers,
which are covered in wonton wrapper flour.
Seal the edge on one side.
And now, we're going to press the air out and seal together.
These lobster ravioli
are gonna hang out on the counter for a minute
while we make our delicious sauce,
and then we'll boil them.
(bell dings)
The sauce comes together super fast,
so I'm gonna bring some water to a boil really slowly,
just so it's ready when the sauce is,
and we can plate this up.
I'm following my own advice
and freezing half of these ravioli to enjoy later.
Half of them I'll be eating now,
so I'm making a portion of the sauce that's half.
If you want to have all the ravioli together,
get an extra big skillet and double the recipe up.
Two tablespoons of butter, two shallots,
one cup of cream, and 1 1/2 cups of wine.
For the sauce,
I'm starting off by chopping one shallot thinly.
Shallots are wonderful.
Of course, they're related to onions,
but they have a more delicate flavor.
And in a creamy wine sauce,
ooh, they're gonna be really delicious.
And if you can't get a shallot,
you could try using a little bit of leek
or, even in a pinch, some onion.
Now, over medium high heat,
I'm gonna add one tablespoon of butter into a large pan.
In the meantime, we're gonna chop a teaspoon or so of thyme.
And you could definitely use sage
or any other herbs that you really love in this.
Just strip the leaves off.
You wanna avoid those woody stems.
Let's give this a nice, fine chop.
One of my favorite herbs to add in, by the way, is sage.
When you fry it, oh my gosh.
If you fry it in a little bit of olive oil,
it totally changes the taste
and gives you a wonderful crunch.
It's great for ravioli
where you want to have a little bit of texture
and a pop of flavor.
I'm actually gonna brown this butter just a little bit.
You can see it's taking on some color right now.
It's gonna give me some more depth of flavor
and really just like amp things up in the sauce.
Adding our shallot in here.
This sauce is a creamy wine sauce,
so choose a nice dry wine that you would enjoy drinking,
and it'll add a wonderful flavor to it.
I'm cooking my shallots,
stirring frequently for just about a minute,
or until they're translucent like this.
I don't want them to burn, though,
because they're delicate and lovely,
and you should treat them nicely.
Right now, we're adding 3/4 of a cup
of that nice dry white wine.
I wanna reduce this by about half,
so I'm cooking off all the alcohol
and keeping all of the flavor.
I'm also gonna season this
with a little bit of salt and pepper.
We're gonna add more later,
but it's nicer to let the salt and pepper infuse in
instead of adding them right at the end
so it's just sticking to the surface of your things.
Depending on your cooktop,
it'll take about four minutes
for this to reduce the proper amount.
Just make sure you keep on stirring.
Now, we're gonna add our finely chopped herbs in here.
And very importantly,
I'm gonna stir in 1/2 a cup of heavy cream.
Add it in, stir, stir, stir.
And this'll reduce and thicken up.
It'll be about two minutes.
So in the meantime, my water has come to a boil,
which means it's time to add our ravioli in.
This is thickened up nicely,
so right now I'm gonna take it off heat.
It'll cook just a little bit more
with the residual heat from the pan.
And we're going to add our ravioli in.
I'm gonna cook these separately,
because I have the wonton wrappers and the pasta.
I don't wanna mix them up.
We're gonna cook our ravioli
for two to three minutes until they're like al dente.
They're gonna finish cooking in that sauce
and really absorb a ton of flavor.
We're done with the wonton.
Now, it's time for the pasta.
Add that second batch in.
If things are going according to plan,
take your pasta and add it directly into your sauce.
It's fine for there to be some pasta water;
it'll help loosen everything up.
And we're gonna cook these in the pan for about two minutes,
just to finish it off
and let them absorb some of that amazing sauce.
Okay, it's time for a bite.
What about the wonton wrapper?
Whether you made this dish with the wonton wrapper
or your homemade pasta,
they're both delicious.
It's really just about how much time you have.
I hope you get a chance to try this recipe.
And if you like this video,
check out my special occasion dinner playlist.