Day 9: Ravioli with Pork and Apples

For me, food offers so much more than physical sustenance. It's a way of connecting with other people, whether out in a restaurant or over a home-cooked meal. When I was a kid, my mother and I used to go out to lunches together, and it was our special time, discovering places to go and finding dishes we liked. I started cooking when I was young too -- I think it made me feel like a grown-up. Now that I am grown-up with adult problems, cooking helps me relax after a long day. And it's a great creative outlet, which is important when I'm not working on new poems (ie, often).

Today I made a dish I haven't made in a while: pork and apple ravioli with sage butter and apple cider glaze. The pork and apple is combined and pureed, stuffed inside homemade pasta, and topped with sage browned in butter, a little bit of browned pork, and an apple cider reduction. There are a lot of steps to this, but it's fun and relaxing to make if you have the time, and so good.

I was originally inspired by a similar dish at Atlanta's Pasta da Pulcinella restaurant, where I used to frequently have lunch with a close friend. My friend lost a battle with breast cancer three years ago, and there are a few restaurants I have trouble going to because of the memories of our meals together.

This is the recipe-less process for the ravioli (this assumes a basic knowledge of pasta-making):

Ingredients

Ground pork (I used a pound and had a lot left over)
Granny Smith apples (2 or 3 cups worth, peeled and chopped up)
Apple cider
Sage
Butter
Flour and eggs for the pasta dough
Parmesan

General Process
I make this up as I go along, but here's the general process:
1. Cook a pound of ground pork in a skillet until there is no longer any pink, putting a little apple cider in as it cooks. Set aside.
2. Cook the apples in the skillet with a little cider (1/2 cup or so) until soft.
3. Combine the apples with 2/3 of the pork (set the rest of the pork aside) and blend with an immersion blender or food processor. This will look like baby food at this point, but be delicious. Season to taste. Add a little parmesan if you'd like. Refrigerate if making ahead.

4. Prepare your favorite egg pasta dough and make sheets of pasta, rolling dough to the second-thinnest setting. Across half of each sheet of pasta, place spoonfuls of the apple-pork filling in rows two-across. Wet the other half of the pasta sheet with water and fold it over the half with the filling. Press to seal the edges and cut the ravioli (I have a little ravioli cutter that makes pretty edges and seals the pasta as it cuts it). Place the ravioli on a sheet dusted with cornmeal and let the ravioli dry for 15 minutes, then flip them over for another 15 minutes. Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to a boil.
5. In a saucepan, heat a cup or so of apple cider over medium heat and cook untl reduced by half.
6. Brown remaining pork in a skillet.
7. Cook ravioli for 3 minutes and drain.
8. As ravioli cooks, brown a little butter in a skillet and add chopped sage leaves.
9. Drizzle sage-butter and cider glaze over ravioli. Top with browned pork and grated parmesan.

So that's the process... and tonight's meal? Jim ate his portion, had another, licked his bowl and then licked my bowl. I think that says it all.