Do I Dare Say It? Holy Mole Ravioli... Well, Maybe Not But You Understand The Point

The UB can get into food ruts.  She frequently finds a food item, type of beer or mixed drink and keeps playing with it, like a cat with a toy, until she is bored and turns up her nose at it for the foreseeable future.  At that point, I have to find new catnip for her to sniff.  I, the AlphaChef on the other hand, usually flit from taste to taste like a teenager who thinks the next thing is always the greatest. This is why I love to play my gargantuan song collection on random.  Currently, the UB is on a roll with ravioli. I had my gaze on the Hungarian salami in the fridge.  If I am willing to combine Thai style curry with ravioli why would I stop at trying Hungarian flavors? And for the life of me I don't understand what happened.  I ended up with almost a Mexican mole. And it worked.

It worked really well. I guess that is the most important thing. Oh, and it was easy. 

Let's start with the sauce.  I tossed into a mini food processor (but a blender will work too) this laundry list:


1/8 tsp cayenne
3-4 oz of tomato paste
1 tsp fish sauce
1 garlic clove chopped
3-4 tablespoons good quality sweet paprika
1 c roasted sweet red bell pepper (roast over gas flame. by blow torch or buy them pre-roasted) chopped into medium sized chunks
1 oz of beef broth
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Technique Warning. OK. If you don't know how to roast a bell pepper in 3-4 minutes on your gas stove here's a technique:

Go to the store and buy roasted bell pepper in a bottle. Oops, sorry wrong instructions. Cut the red pepper  longitudinally in half. Remove the seeds and whitish parts of the pepper.  Lay the pepper skin down and flat on top of the rack that covers the gas burners so that the flame are under the pepper. Frequently, rotate the pepper until the pepper's skin become somewhat charred across the whole side. And then flip the peppers so the inside of the pepper is in the flame, continue with the same technique as before but the inside won't char - it will become slightly cooked = soft.

Blend all the above in the food processor until fully pureed. Oh my, that was difficult.

Now let's move on. Make sure you have this stuff too. You'll need it.

7 oz of beef broth (or the rest of the container)
Salt
Pepper

Bacon fat or some sort of oil such as olive oil

1 large shallot, sliced thin (about a half a cup - more is fine)
3 oz. julienne Hungarian style salami
Cheese ravioli about 12 -14 pieces
Peach liqueur
Sambuca

In pan which you can cover, melt bacon fat, add the sliced shallot, cover on medium heat for a couple minutes. The goal is to soften the shallot and not brown them. Add a splash of beef broth, cover again for another couple minutes, until fully softened. Add puree you made 5 minutes earlier and the rest of the beef broth, a bay leaf, 3 oz finely sliced Hungarian salami, a pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, a splash of sambuca, and a splash of peach liqueur (or in a pinch Cointreau, grand Marnier or triple sec). Put lid back on and simmer until the ravioli is fried.

As foreshadowed, its time to make the fried cheese ravioli.  I am assuming you are lazy like me and bought decent ravioli from the refrigerated section of the grocery store. I am going to give you different directions on how to cook the little squares of laziness. Generously coat a pan [which is large enough to space the placement of the pasta so all the raviolis are flat onto the pan's bottom. Hint: This is a technique tip] with olive oil and 1/8 inch water plus another tablespoon of olive oil, and bring it to a boil on high. Spread out the ravioli across the pan. Cook until water evaporates, and then drop the temperature to medium high. Continue to fry the bottom side of the ravioli until it is lightly brown and then flip in order to brown the other side.

Plate the ravioli, remove the bay leaf from the sauce and then cover the pasta with the sauce. Marvel how the hell did this sauce end up tasting like a mole?

And if you really want to garnish it, I would recommend sprinkling it with either pine nuts, chopped parsley or shards of broken beer bottle.  Did I just type that?