So you’ve painstakingly prepared your fresh, homemade ravioli, enveloping a delectable filling - you’re now left at a culinary crossroads of sorts. What sauce, exactly, is the perfect pairing for your delicate ravioli? Luckily, the art of preparing balanced ravioli dishes with beautifully complimentary sauces is a simple enough skill for any home cook to master.
As the pasta parcels are the real star of each dish, we often opt for a traditional compound butters to finish our pasta. Infused butter as such lend a mouth-watering sheen to your pasta while enhancing the flavours already present in the ravioli filling. As a much-needed bonus, butter sauces are incredibly easy to prepare and can be made in advance (in anticipation of when future ravioli cravings beckon, of course).
Truffle Butter Sauce
Truffle is one of Italy’s most cherished culinary exports. Known for its distinctive, umami flavour and strong aroma, this deliciously earthy ingredient is incorporated into just about anything in the bel paese; from oil to butter, savoury spreads and even jams. Finishing any ravioli dish with a generous helping of truffle butter ensures your pasta is finished with a luxurious gloss and enticing aroma.
4 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Calories per serving: 170 kcal
Ingredients
- 100g of good quality unsalted butter
- 10g of freshly grated black truffle
- Salt to season
Chef’s tip: Black truffle is notoriously expensive - for a more purse-friendly - yet equally tasty - dish, feel free to opt for truffle oil or black truffle cream instead!
Method
- Place your room-temperature butter in a mixing bowl. Clean your truffle and finely grate into small pieces (we recommend using a truffle grater here).
- incorporate the grated truffles into the butter. While you can use a food processor to speed up the process we’d recommend doing it by hand as you’ll have more control over how combined you want your mixture to be.
- Add salt to taste.
- Mix until thoroughly combined and then scoop the mixture onto a sheet of parchment paper. From here, tightly roll the buttery mass into a log-like shape, about 1 inch thick. Twist ends to secure and chill until firm. Alternatively, freeze for up to a month and enjoy at a later date.
- Take out and use when ready. We like slicing ours into easy-to-use disks; they’re convenient and rather cute. We recommend around 25g of butter per serving.
- To serve immediately, transfer your compound butter to a pan, and heat gently until melted and deep golden in hue.
Sage Butter Sauce
Burro e salvia – butter and sage for the anglophones – is a much-loved pairing in Italian cuisine. Cherished by the Romans for its apparent health-boosting properties, the use of this plant goes back quite some time. The Romans even used sage to ward off evil spirits, earning it the moniker ‘holy herb’. This seems to explain its Latin – and Italian – name ‘salvia’, meaning safe. Pairing this comforting butter with ravioli often proves a winning combination, the earthy herb is complimentary to most ingredients, including seafood, red meat, game and poultry, as well as lighter cheese and vegetable fillings.
4 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Calories per serving: 166 kcal
Ingredients
- 50g butter
- A small handful of sage leaves
- Black Pepper
- Salt to season
Method
- Remove the butter from the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature on the counter.
- Roughly chop the sage leaves and add to butter (you can even leave some of the sage leaves whole if you like, there’s nothing better than a mouthful of butter-soaked pasta with a crispy sage leaf). Season with salt and black pepper to taste.
- Mix until thoroughly combined and then scoop the mixture onto a sheet of parchment paper. From here, tightly roll the buttery mass into a log-like shape, about 1 inch thick. Twist ends to secure and chill until firm. Alternatively, freeze for up to a month and enjoy at a later date.
- To enjoy immediately, simply place the butter in a large pan and gently heat until the sage becomes crisp, and the mixture turns a deep golden colour.
Simple Datterini Pomodoro Sauce
Pomodoro e basilico. These two simple ingredients fuse to create a sauce that is both fragrant and sublime. Though the pairing of ravioli and a tomato sauce is a relatively modern phenomenon (this pasta-and-sauce pairing was not introduced until the 16th century, when tomatoes made their way to Italy from the New World), the humble pomodoro is a simple sauce to execute, and delivers flavoursome results. Ravioli typically shine when served with a lighter sauce, so we recommend loosening the mixture with a little pasta water, enabling the pasta parcels to glisten amongst the punchy pomodoro.
4 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Calories per serving: 25 kcal
Ingredients
- 100g Datterini tomatoes (you may also use cherry or plum tomatoes)
- Fresh Basil, shredded
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- ½ tsp tomato puree
- 1 tsp olive oil
- ½ tsp dried basil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method
- Gently heat the olive oil in a deep frying pan. Add the garlic, and sauté until fragrant.
- In a food processor, gently pulse your tomatoes, until a chunky puree texture is obtained. Add this, the tomato puree, and the fresh and dried basil to the pan. Stir until well combined, and allow to simmer over a low heat for around 5 minutes, so the flavours meld. Don’t worry at this point if it seems you don’t have much sauce - adding pasta water will ensure a glossy mixture that better pairs with delicate ravioli.
- Boil you ravioli in salted water, for around 3-4 minutes. Strain the ravioli, ensuring to reserve the deliciously starchy pasta water. Add the liquid to the tomato mixture, in order to loosen the sauce. Once the desired texture is achieved, taste the mixture, then season with salt and pepper as necessary. Be sure to do this after, as the pasta water should already be generously salted, and will lend its flavour to the sauce.
- Your sauce is now ready to adorn your ravioli parcels - while it is tempting to smother your pasta in this deliciously simple sauce, we advise using it sparingly, as to ensure your ravioli remains the star of the dish - this bright pomodoro serves to complement the pasta, rather than overpower it.
Broth, Ravioli en brodo
Ravioli en brodo are a classic means of enjoying this pasta ripiena (filled pasta) staple. The classic iteration of this dish involves steeping beef and veal bones, as well as vegetables and herbs, in liquid for hours to release their flavour. This results in a flavoursome and rich broth, that perfectly complements most ravioli recipes. This undertaking, however, is a formidable one - should you struggle to source the bones required from this recipe (they can be obtained from most local butcher shops), feel free to use a good quality broth or stock bought from the supermarket. Just ensure you use the pre-prepared variety - a stock cube will result in a less flavourful and satisfying broth.
5-6 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 270 minutes
Calories per serving: 45 kcal
Ingredients
- 500g beef shank bones (You can use short rib if you prefer, though the bone marrow here lends a decadent richness)
- 300g chicken thighs and/or drumsticks, skin on
- 1 onion, quartered
- 1 stick of celery, halved
- 1 carrot, quartered
- 3-4 bay leaves
- A few fresh peppercorns
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Method
- Place the beef bones on a tray, and roast in an oven that has been preheated to 180 degrees, for around 30 minutes.
- Add a tablespoon of olive oil to a deep-sided stockpot, and brown the chicken thighs and drumsticks over a high heat. You’re aiming for some browning on the bottom of the pot here - this will add flavour to your broth.
- Remove the beef bones from the oven, and transfer to the stockpot, before adding the vegetables, bay leaves and peppercorns. Add enough water to cover the contents of the pan, and bring to a rolling boil.
- Once boiling, cover your pot with a lid and allow to simmer for around 4 hours, stirring occasionally.
- After this time, strain your broth thoroughly. Ladle this liquid over your cooked ravioli and enjoy!
- Should you want to enjoy your broth later, simply allow to cool, portion and freeze for up to 6 months.
Looking for more sauce inspiration? Be sure to check out our five simple and delicious pantry tomato sauces here.
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