SWEET POTATO RAVIOLI
08 may 2006

so last week was a bust as i:
- worked till 8pm monday night
- had class till 8pm tuesday night
- worked till 930pm wednesday night
- had dinner with my friend cat (to celebrate her birthday) thursday night
- had dinner with my cousins (to celebrate cinco de mayo) friday night
- had dinner with my other cousins (to celebrate another birthday) saturday night
- was in the studio all day sunday & was too hungry to cook sunday night

cooking? not gonna happen.
& i'll tell you something. it PAINED me. hand to god. i LIKE omgsnax! i WANT to try new recipes. (although lately everything i've looked up has involved frying, which i find vaguely disturbing.)

this week i continued in my quest to come up with a good sweet potato recipe. some might call it an obsession, i don't know, an unhealthy fixation, a calling -- but what i do know is this: i'm tired of recipes that bury the sweet potato under cumin & chili powder, under brown sugar & marshmallows. i just want to enjoy the sweet potato without all those distractions. is that so wrong?

INGREDIENTS
500 g (1 lb) orange sweet potato, cut into large pieces
1/4 cup (60 ml/2 fl oz) olive oil
150 g (5 oz) ricotta cheese
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
2 x 250 g (8 oz) packets egg won ton wrappers
60 g (2 oz) butter
4 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal
2 cloves garlic, crushed, extra
300 ml (10 fl oz) cream
baby basil leaves, to serve

METHOD
preheat the oven to hot 425 F. place the sweet potato on a baking tray & drizzle with oil. bake for 40 minutes, or until tender.

transfer the sweet potato to a bowl with the ricotta, basil, garlic, & parmesan & mash until smooth.

cover the won ton wrappers with a damp tea towel. place 2 level teaspoons of the sweet potato mixture into the centre of one wrapper & brush the edges with a little water. top with another wrapper. place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper & cover with a tea towel. repeat with the remaining ingredients to make 60 ravioli, placing a sheet of baking paper between each layer.

melt the butter in a frying pan. add the spring onion & garlic & cook over medium heat for 1 minute. add the cream, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat & simmer for 4-5 minutes, or until the cream has reduced & thickened. keep warm.

bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. cook the ravioli in batches for 2-4 minutes, or until just tender. drain well. ladle the hot sauce over the top of the ravioli, garnish with the basil leaves, & serve immediately.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
no, i pretty much followed this one without making any adjustments. except i substituted minced garlic for crushed garlic. but let's not split hairs.

while the sweet potatoes roasted -- or baked, or whatever they were doing -- i worked on my statistics final, & from there on out, i was standing at the counter making ravioli. i made twelve & decided maybe i ought to give those a shot before making the rest, b/c as i've learned, it's a huge bummer to go to the trouble of making something that's pretty involved, only for it to taste like, as the french say, zee cat butt.

as it turns out, they did not, in fact, taste like zee cat butt. the filling was actually pretty awesome. the won ton skins? less awesome. i used to eat won ton soup when i was a kid, & that's the thing to keep in mind: won ton skins may be EQUIVALENT to pasta somehow, but are not IN FACT pasta. this sweet potato/ricotta filling would've been WAY better in your standard stuffed pasta (as tortellini or ravioli), b/c there were a couple problems with the won ton wrappers.

problem numero un:
the wrappers were pretty limp, even though the ravioli only cooked for three minutes.

problem number deux:
the wrappers were significantly larger than the amount of filling i put in -- but had i added more filling, chances for explosion would've increased exponentially.

problem numero trois:
did i mention limp? just not the right consistency for what we were going for, i think.

i appreciate not having to make a dough from scratch -- b/c that sure as hell wasn't going to happen when i didn't even get started till after 8pm -- but some things are worth the effort, i suspect.

in addition to the puzzling texture of the won ton wrappers, there was the matter of the cream sauce, which actually didn't thicken at all. & also my thinking is that maybe the ravioli would've been better in straight up butter with just a little garlic/onion. although i understand that the sweetness of the cream was to complement the flavor of the sweet potato, & it did -- i just think it was almost too much.

all in all, it was a good dish but probably not worth the effort it'd take to make it again. i'd order it at a restaurant, though.

daniel liked it but said that he's tired of "sweet things in non-sweet dishes," which, translated, means that he's tired of my trying to woo the sweet potato away from what he feels is its prime directive: being sweet with butter & brown sugar.

"Sweet Potato Ravioli" from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook, edited by Jane Price, © 2000.