pico de gallo ravioli with green chile sauce

Since I started the plan for eating heat to lose weight, I have been thinking out-of-the-box for ways to incorporate spice into every day meals. I don't add heat for the sake of adding heat either; I am careful to make sure the flavor combinations work. Making something that tastes bad defeats the purpose of the plan. I want to eat things that taste good, are healthy, and are filling.

I like to make my own ravioli. There is simply no better ravioli than fresh, homemade ones. My dough recipe is simple; 2 cups of flour and 3 eggs, then run it through the food processor until is makes a ball (this recipe is from p.21 of The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles, which is a Cook's Illustrated book that should be in everyone's collection). Let it rest for at least 1/2 hour, then run it through the pasta machine of your choice.

When I make ravioli, I typically make a ricotta and parsley filling that obviously doesn't add any heat. I was thinking one day that ravioli would taste good in a Southwest fusion type dish. My idea was to make some pico de gallo, mix it with a version of the ricotta filling, and top it with some green chile.

This dish turned out phenomenally well. I can't stress how good (and healthy) this dish is. Here's the recipe:

Green Chile Sauce
This recipe is adapted from this TLC cooking recipe. I cranked up the heat on this one.

6 large Anaheim Chiles
3/4 pound fresh tomatillos
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon dried Turkish oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped

1. Roast the chiles on a grill until the skin is brown. Remove them from the heat, put them in a bowl, and cover it with plastic wrap. Wait 20 minutes, then peel off the skin and cut off the tops.

2. Boil the tomatillos in a saucepan for 20 minutes.

3. Place everything in a food processor and pulse it a few times to the desired consistency.



Pico de Gallo
Follow the recipe from the Homesick Texan blog for the pico de gallo. It is perfect as is.



Ravioli Filling
1 cup low fat ricotta cheese
3 oz queso fresco, crumbled
1 egg yolk
3 heaping tablespoons pico de gallo
salt and pepper to taste (note I used Penzey's California Style Seasoned Pepper)

Mix everything up in a bowl. That's it.

Assembling the Dish

I boiled the ravioli for about 4 minutes. Then I drained them, covered them with some of the green chile sauce, and added some queso fresco on top. In the picture, you might be wondering why the ravioli are red. The answer is that I have a three year old and I wasn't sure he would like the pico de gallo ravioli, so I added some red food coloring to the dough for those. The non-colored ones were his (they had my standard ricotta filling).



Pico De Gallo

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