Fresh squash ravioli question

Hi everyone,
I've been mostly lurking and not posting much these days, but today I need a little help. Last weekend I was in Portland and finally bought the pasta making attachments for my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Tonight I'm planning a first course of fresh pasta ravioli stuffed with a mixture of turban squash and sugarpie pumpkin, seasoned with fresh sage in browned butter and a bit of ricotta and cream to bind it. BUT--how to present this ravioli? Should I top it simply with more sage butter and a little grated parmesan, or make a sage-cream sauce, or something even different? I'm hoping for a presentation that won't be just the ordinary...
Thanks in advance for your help!
Ines

[Jenise]

Ines!

I'm pretty loyal to the first way I ever had this dish at a great Italian restaurant in Zurich: chopped sage and browned butter only (reflexively, I think the cream would be too rich and sweet), and blanketed a fine dusting of grated parmesan. A single deep fried sage leaf was placed on top. A nice addition for color and texture would be chopped/roasted walnuts, hazelnuts or pecans.

I agree completely with Jenise. Cream would kill the dish's subtlety. It sounds very good, by the way.

(Bonus, if your dinner should happen to include any hip 20-somethings who gush about absinthe liquors. Wait until they've finished the dish -- that's important -- then inform them they've just consumed more thujone than they'd get from a strong absinthe, and moreover that it's listed by the USFDA as perfectly safe. All of this is accurate and well supported but might give them something to think about. )

Third it. Don't tart up the presentation of a simple, classic dish like this. And don't do anything that will affect the flavor/texture balance. Simple perfection should be presented as... simple perfection.

[Jenise]

So how did it turn out, Ines? And how did you like the KA attachment for rolling out sheets of dough?

Making the pasta dough with the Kitchenaid was dead easy. Just 3 1/2 cups of flour, four eggs, a dash of salt and a dash of water, and the flat paddle and the dough hook did all the work. I had lovely dough within 5 minutes and then let it rest for a half hour while I prepared my squash filling. It took me a while to learn how to handle the dough, that is, making smallish disks of dough with enough flour on them so they would process through the flat rollers. I learned that each sheet would go through changes as it became pasta--first rolling out somewhat lacy and unstable, then with repeated foldings and running through the roller again, finally becoming silky sheets of thin pasta that were quite sturdy. It took about 6 passes through the flat roller for each portion of pasta to get to this point. Making the actual ravioli took some practice too. I think the first 4 took me at least 30 minutes because I was making them one at a time. Then I figured out how to make two 12 inch long narrow sheets of pasta, and then put four dollops of filling along one sheet, wet the pasta around the filling with a brush dipped water, and then press the second sheet over the first, making little round pockets for each dollop of filling and then cutting out square ravioli with a fluted rolling cutter. After that it went quickly. I boiled four at a time, not wanting to deal with too many at once, then plated them two at a time and topped them with brown butter with crispy sage and pecans. Not only was it gorgeous, it was delicious and could easily have been the main course and not just a starter for the beef bourguignon sur crouton that followed. I did learn that this is not something you make for 25 people, since the ravioli are quite time-intensive. I made fettucine with the remaining pasta dough, which we'll have on Monday, over a bed of the leftover squash/ricotta filling. Now that I know how easy it is to make fresh pasta, it will be on the menu frequently. I'm itching to make beet pasta next!
Ines

That's fabulous. Welcome to the Homemade Pasta Club!

With just a bit of practice (surprisingly little), you'll soon find the process to be quicker- pasta for 25 won't intimidate you.

[Jenise]

Ines, great report. And you used 100% AP flour, no semolina?

Fresh pasta's fun. It sounds like the Kitchen Aid method is identical to using the manual Atlas except that you don't have to turn the crank--the way it self-needs as you go through about six passes. Fresh pasta freezes well too--always handy to make more than you need once you've gone to all the trouble.

Thanks Ines, it did sound very good.

You folks may know already that fresh pasta sheets are actually what got food onto the Internet in an organized way. (That posting doesn't say explicitly, but its author and several friends had Atlas 150s and were trying to figure out good uses for all the fresh pasta they were cranking out.)

After cooking the fettucine I made on Friday, I discovered that refrigerated homemade pasta holds up very well and even keeps it's texture and flavor very nicely after being cooked. I'll be making homemade spaghetti on Wednesday and will freeze some to see how it hold up with that treatment.
Ines