Sometimes sitting in front of the TV doing nothing can give you moments of inspiration. This morning one of the cooking channels was on showing a mexican cuisine show. I wasn't particularly paying attention to the show, but after hearing snippets talking about chilli and mole, I started thinking about the dinner I had planned to cook for the evening. This was originally ravioli with a cheese and ham filling, but I now fancied chilli. How could I bring those two dishes together? The easiest answer was to fill ravioli with chilli, which is how I came up with this dish.
Serves 2
Ingredients
For the pasta
150g 00 or pasta flour
1 large egg
1 egg yolk (save the white to seal the ravioli)
For the chilli (my chilli was from the freezer having been previously made. As you need only a teaspoonful per ravioli, this is the best option)
500g stewing steak, cut into chunks
Seasoned flour
1 small onion, chopped
1 small tin baked beans (use kidney beans if you prefer, but you will need to add a little sugar)
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 1/2 tsp cumin
Chilli powder to taste (I would add 2-3 tsp plus chillis, but I like the heat. Adjust to your preference)
1 red chilli finely chopped
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
1tbsp worcestershire sauce
Sunflower or other tasteless oil for cooking
Water
For the salsa
4 medium tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic, skin on
1-2 green chillis, to taste
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt
Small bunch coriander, chopped
Juice of 1 lime
For the sour cream
1 small tub sour cream
Small bunch of chives, chopped
Chilli
Note - the longer this cooks, the better flavour it has. If it can be cooked the day before it is even better. I would suggest 2-3 hours cooking of the chilli
1. In a heavy bottomed pan pour a little oil and bring to a medium heat. Soften the onions and cook for about 15 minutes to allow them to start to caramelise
2. Once they have cooked, remove from the pan. Coat the stewing steak in the seasoned flour, and brown in the pan that the onions were cooked in, in batches. You may need to add extra oil. Put the meat to one side
3. In the same pan add the tomato puree and chillis, and cook the puree out for a few minutes to release the sweetness.
4. Add the meat and onions back to the pan with the chillis and puree. To this add all of the other chilli ingredients except the baked beans and enough water to cover all of the ingredients.
5. Reduce the heat to low, and leave to simmer until the meat is tender, stirring occasionally(the meat for my chilli came from a batch of meat that was cooked in a pressure cooker for two hours to make stock).
6. 15 minutes from the end of cooking, add the baked beans and adjust the seasoning as required.
7. Turn the heat up and reduce the sauce if the sauce is still thin at this stage, then put to one side until ready to use
Pasta
1. On a clean surface create a 'volcano' of flour. In the middle of the volcano put the whole egg and the egg yolk.
2. Using your fingers or a fork, stir the egg, slowly incorporating the flour. It will eventually get to the stage where it is too difficult to stir, at which point combine the ingredients with your hands, and kneed for a few minutes until the dough is smooth
3. Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before rolling
4. When ready, use your pasta roller to roll the dough in pieces until you get thin sheets of pasta (I roll until setting 7 for ravioli). Note - this ravioli is intended to be large - I use a 3 inch ravioli cutter. Flour your pasta sheets with a little cornflour on the bottom to stop them sticking to your work surface
5. To make the ravioli - Put one sheet of pasta down and lightly press your ravioli cutter along the sheet so you know how many you will get and where the edges are
6. Place a teaspoonful of the chilli mixture into the middle of each ravioli
7. Use the extra egg white to create a glue around the edge of the ravioli
8. Put a second sheet of pasta on top of the pasta and filling, pushing down bewtween each ravioli. As you press down make sure you press out any air in the ravioli
9. Cut out the ravioli with your cutter, then make sure that all of the edges are sealed
10. when ready to cook, put the ravioli into a large pan of boiling water and cook for 4 minutes. Place on kitchen towel to soak up excess water before plating
Salsa
1. Put a dry frying pan on to a medium heat and put your 4 whole tomatoes into it. Turn occasionaly, but you are looking to get some charring onto the skin
2. After 5 minutes add your chillis and garlic still in its skin and cook for a further 10 minutes, turning occasionally
3. In a mortar and pestle, or a food processor, add the salt then squeeze the garlic out of the skin. Crush or pulse in the food processor
4. Add the other hot ingredients and break them down so that you retain some texture rather than it being smooth
5. Put this into a bowl, then add the onions, coriander and lime juice, stirring together
Sour cream (the easy bit)
1. In a bowl put the sour cream and chives and stir together
To serve -
Put 4 or 5 ravioli onto a plate, then serve with with the salsa, sour cream and a salad
