Italian Foie Gras Ravioli with Brown Butter and Sage | Ravioli Ripieni di Foie Gras con Burro Nocciola e Salvia
Foie gras inside fresh pasta is either extraordinary or unbearable, and the difference is proportion. The filling has to taste unmistakably of foie gras and still leave the palate willing to accept a second raviolo. Cut with drained ricotta and aged Parmigiano, the liver keeps its perfume and loses the density that makes four of them a chore. Cut with nothing, it is a terrine served hot.
The sauce is the Italian half of the dish. Burro nocciola is butter taken past melting until the milk solids toast and the fat smells of hazelnut and roasted grain, and with sage fried crisp in it, it is what Emilia and Lombardy have poured over filled pasta for centuries. It takes ninety seconds and can be ruined in ten, because the line between nocciola and burnt is a matter of colour rather than time.
The last element is mostarda, the candied mustard fruit of Cremona and Mantova. A little diced pear mostarda over the finished plate gives the sweet sharp bite that Italian cooking has always used against rich boiled meats, and it keeps this from being a French dish wrapped in pasta.
Yield: 4 servings as a first course, about 32 ravioli. Prep: 1 hour. Rest: 1 hour. Cook: 10 minutes. Total: about 2 hours 15 minutes. Difficulty: advanced. Course: primo piatto. Region: Piedmont and the Po valley.
The Story
Foie gras is not an Italian tradition and it is worth saying so plainly. Italy forbade the force feeding of birds in 2007, so any foie gras on an Italian menu today is imported, almost always from the southwest of France. What is Italian is the route it took in. Piedmont sits against the French border, the House of Savoy kept a French speaking court and kitchen for centuries, and the grand hotel cooking of Turin and the Langhe absorbed foie gras the way it absorbed consommé, as part of a shared northern repertoire.
The raviolo is the local half of the equation. Piedmont has its agnolotti del plin, pinched shut with the fingers and dressed with nothing but butter or the juices of the meat inside them. Filled pasta in this part of Italy has always been where an expensive scrap of something went further than it would alone, which is exactly the argument for putting foie gras inside one. A whole lobe serves two people as a seared escalope; the same lobe fills thirty two ravioli.
Burro nocciola e salvia is the oldest dressing in that repertoire and the one that asks least. Before tomato reached the north, butter and sage were what went over tortelli in Mantova and gnocchi in Verona, and browning the butter until the solids caramelise was a way of getting depth out of one ingredient. Mostarda comes from the same table: Cremona and Mantova have candied whole fruit in mustard essence since the Renaissance and served it with bollito misto ever since.
Ingredients
For the pasta
Italian 00 flour, 1 1/2 cups (200 g)
Durum wheat semola rimacinata, 1/3 cup (50 g)
Egg yolks, large, 8, about 5 oz (140 g)
Whole egg, large, 1
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp (5 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)
For the filling
Raw duck foie gras, deveined, 7 oz (200 g)
Fresh cow milk ricotta, drained overnight, 3 1/2 oz (100 g)
Parmigiano Reggiano aged 24 months, finely grated, 1 oz (30 g)
Egg yolk, large, 1
Dry Marsala, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
Ground white pepper, 1/8 tsp (0.3 g)
Freshly grated nutmeg, 1 small pinch
For the brown butter and sage
Unsalted butter, high fat if possible, 5 oz (140 g)
Fresh sage leaves, 16
Reserved pasta cooking water, 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Finely grated zest of 1/2 untreated lemon
For finishing
Pear mostarda di Cremona, finely diced, 2 tbsp (30 g)
Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated, 1/2 oz (15 g)
Flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preparation
Making the yolk rich sfoglia
Mix the 00 flour and the semola on a board, make a well and add the yolks, the whole egg, the oil and the salt. Break the eggs up with a fork, draw the flour in until the mass is shaggy, then knead 10 minutes. A dough this rich in yolk starts sticky and turns firm, smooth and deep yellow. Wrap it and rest it 1 hour at room temperature, since the gluten will not roll thin until it has relaxed.
Tempering and seasoning the foie gras
Take the deveined lobe out of the refrigerator 20 minutes ahead, just until it yields under a finger but is not soft. Cut it into rough 1 in (2.5 cm) pieces, season with the salt, white pepper and nutmeg, sprinkle over the Marsala and leave it 15 minutes. Work fast and with cool hands: foie gras left warm weeps fat within minutes, and that fat never reaches the filling.
Draining the ricotta
Drain the ricotta hard, overnight in a fine mesh sieve over a bowl in the refrigerator with a weighted plate on top. Undrained ricotta carries enough free whey to blow a raviolo open in the water, and no amount of careful sealing holds against it. When it is ready it holds a ridge under the back of a spoon.
Making the filling
Pulse the seasoned foie gras briefly with the drained ricotta until combined but still slightly textured, then fold in the Parmigiano and the egg yolk by hand. Do not run the machine until smooth: friction warms the liver and splits the fat out of it. Chill 30 minutes, pipe into 32 walnut sized mounds on a tray and freeze them 15 minutes so they hold their shape.
Rolling the pasta
Cut the rested dough into four pieces and keep three wrapped. Roll each down to the second thinnest setting, until you can read print through the sheet but it still resists. Keep the rolled sheets under a cloth: a yolk rich sfoglia dries at the edges fast, and a dry edge will not seal.
Forming the ravioli
Set the chilled mounds along a sheet at 2 in (5 cm) intervals, brush a fine line of water between them, lay the second sheet over and press around each mound with the side of your hand, working from the centre outward so every pocket of air is driven to the edge. Cut with a 2 1/4 in (5.5 cm) cutter and press the rim once more. Trapped air expands in the water and splits the seam.
Making the brown butter and frying the sage
Melt the butter in a wide pan over medium heat and let it foam, hiss and quieten. When the solids at the base turn the colour of a hazelnut shell and the smell shifts from dairy to toasted nut, drop in the sage and take the pan off the heat; residual heat crisps the leaves in about 20 seconds. Add the lemon zest last and hold the pan warm.
Cooking the ravioli
Bring a wide pan of water to a bare simmer and salt it lightly, since the filling and the Parmigiano carry salt already. Never a rolling boil: agitation tears filled pasta. Slide the ravioli in in one layer and cook 3 to 4 minutes, until the sealed edge is tender. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and reserve a cup of the water.
Emulsifying the sauce and finishing
Add 3 tbsp (45 ml) of the cooking water to the brown butter and swirl the pan over low heat until it turns from clear fat to an opaque pale sauce. Slide the ravioli in, spoon the sauce over them for about 30 seconds and take the pan off the heat. That starch is what keeps the butter from separating on the plate.
Plating
Use warm plates, not hot ones. The filling is held by foie gras fat that is solid when cold and liquid near body temperature, and a plate straight from the oven pushes it past that point before it reaches the table. Six to eight ravioli make a first course.
Arrange them in a single layer, slightly overlapping, never stacked, and spoon the emulsified butter over each so the surface shines. Set the crisp sage leaves upright against the pasta rather than flat, where they soften in seconds. Scatter the diced mostarda in four or five points around the plate, not over the ravioli, so each forkful can be taken with or without it. Finish with grated Parmigiano, flaky salt and black pepper.
Professional Technique
The governing constraint is that foie gras is roughly 85 percent fat by weight and that fat renders from about 95°F (35°C), far below the temperature of a cooked raviolo. Left pure, the filling liquefies, escapes through the seam and leaves a hollow parcel. The ricotta, the Parmigiano and the egg yolk are not there to stretch an expensive ingredient: they build a protein network that traps the rendering fat and holds it as a cream. That is why the ratio of 7 oz (200 g) of liver to 3 1/2 oz (100 g) of drained ricotta matters more than any other number here.
Browning butter is the second technique and it is pure Maillard chemistry. Butter is about 16 percent water and 2 percent milk solids, and the water has to boil off before the solids can reach the 300°F (150°C) at which they brown, which is why the pan goes loud, then quiet, and only then changes colour. Once the solids turn nut brown they go black within 20 seconds. Dropping the sage in at that moment and pulling the pan does two jobs: it stops the browning and it crisps the leaves on residual heat.
The third is the emulsion. Brown butter is broken fat with toasted solids in it and pools around the pasta unless something binds it. Starchy water swirled into a warm pan gives a temporary emulsion that clings for the few minutes that matter. The pan must be warm and not hot: a hot pan flashes the water off, a cold one leaves the butter greasy.
Texture and Moisture Control
Three moisture problems meet in this dish. The ricotta carries free whey that bursts a seam, which is why it drains overnight under a weight. The foie gras renders fat under heat, which is why it is bound with protein and kept cold until it goes into the pasta. The sheet itself dries at the cut edge within a minute of rolling, which is why it stays under a cloth and the ravioli are formed in batches.
Cooking is a matter of agitation rather than time. A bare simmer cooks a raviolo in 3 to 4 minutes with the seam intact; a rolling boil tears the same parcel open in under a minute. What you are cooking is the sealed double thickness at the rim, not the single layer over the filling, so judge it by biting the edge. If the edge is tender the centre is long past ready.
Professional Mise en Place
Almost everything here is done in advance, and the last five minutes are nothing but boiling, swirling and plating.
Equipment and tools
Pasta machine or a long rolling pin and a large wooden board
Food processor, fine mesh sieve and a piping bag with a 1/2 in (12 mm) tip
Round or square cutter, 2 1/4 in (5.5 cm), and a pastry brush
Wide low pan for the ravioli and a second wide pan for the butter
Slotted spoon and trays lined with semola dusted cloth
Prepared ahead
Ricotta drained overnight under a weight in the refrigerator
Pasta dough made and rested, up to 1 day wrapped and refrigerated
Filling mixed and piped into mounds, up to 1 day covered and cold
Ravioli formed and frozen on trays, up to 1 month
Mostarda diced and Parmigiano grated, kept covered
Service setup
Water at a bare simmer, salted lightly and tasted
Butter ready to brown but not yet browned, sage leaves dry beside the pan
Cup of cooking water lifted out before the ravioli come off the heat
Plates warm, never hot, and the mostarda and grater on the pass
Chef Tips
Buy the foie gras already deveined if you can. Deveining a raw lobe means bringing it to 68°F (20°C), opening it flat and pulling the veins out with tweezers, and every minute at that temperature costs fat. If you do it yourself, return the lobe to the refrigerator the moment it feels greasy.
Freeze the piped mounds of filling for 15 minutes before you build the ravioli. Cold filling holds its shape and lets you drive the air out properly. Soft filling spreads under the sheet, reaches the seal line and guarantees the raviolo opens in the water.
Judge the butter by colour and smell, never by a timer. Pan thickness, butter and burner change the timing by a factor of two, but the sequence never changes: loud, quiet, foam, hazelnut colour. Use a light coloured pan so you can see the solids, and pour the butter out if it looks close, since a heavy pan keeps browning off the heat.
If mostarda is impossible to find, use a teaspoon of aged balsamic reduced by half rather than a fruit chutney. The plate needs acidity with a sharp edge, not sweetness. Fig jam and onion marmalade only add weight to a dish that has plenty.
Common Mistakes
Using undrained ricotta. Free whey turns to steam and blows the seam open from the inside, and whatever filling survives is loose and watery. Drain it overnight in a sieve under a weighted plate.
Processing the filling until smooth. The friction warms the foie gras past the point where its fat splits out, and the mixture goes oily and grey. Pulse briefly, keep some texture and chill the filling before it goes anywhere near pasta.
Boiling the ravioli hard. Filled pasta tears at the seam under agitation long before it overcooks. Keep the surface barely trembling and lift the ravioli out with a slotted spoon rather than draining them into a colander.
Walking away from the browning butter. It goes from hazelnut to black in about 20 seconds and burnt butter is bitter all the way through. Stay at the pan and pull it the moment the solids turn.
Skipping the cooking water in the sauce. Without starch the brown butter separates and the ravioli sit in a pool of fat with the toasted solids stranded at the bottom. Three tablespoons swirled into a warm pan is all it takes.
Wine Pairing
Alta Langa DOCG: The Piedmontese metodo classico, and the most complete answer on this list. The fine persistent bead lifts the fat off the palate while a bone dry Pas Dosé or Brut keeps sweetness out of a dish that already has mostarda. Long lees ageing brings a toasted bread note that meets the browned butter directly.
Alto Adige Gewürztraminer DOC: Dry but intensely aromatic, and the classic aromatic white for liver. Lychee, rose and candied ginger read as sweetness without any sugar, flattering the liver the way a sweet wine would while the glycerine carries the fat. Its faintly bitter finish keeps the pairing from cloying by the fourth raviolo.
Collio Friulano DOC: The quieter choice from the Friulian border hills, for anyone who finds the Gewürztraminer too loud. Friulano is broad and waxy with a clean almond bitterness at the end, and that bitterness does real work against the richness. Acidity enough for the butter, weight enough not to vanish under the filling.
Erbaluce di Caluso DOCG: From the moraine hills north of Turin, close to where this combination first appeared on Piedmontese menus. Erbaluce is high in acidity, low in aromatics and faintly saline, a scalpel rather than a partner: it cuts the fat and resets the palate without adding a competing flavour.
Alto Adige DOC Pinot Nero: For anyone who wants a red, and the only style of red that survives this dish. Serve it at around 57°F (14°C). Alpine Pinot Nero has fine tannin and red cherry acidity rather than extract and oak, so it works with the sage and the toasted butter instead of coating the palate. A tannic red turns metallic against the liver.
Storage & Reheating
Raw ravioli freeze far better than they refrigerate. Arrange them in a single layer on a semola dusted tray, freeze until solid, then bag them for up to 1 month and cook from frozen, adding a minute. Refrigerated raw they hold only 6 hours before the filling dampens the pasta from the inside.
Cooked ravioli keep refrigerated in a single layer, lightly buttered and covered, for 1 day only. Reheat them in a wide pan with 2 tbsp (30 ml) of water over low heat, covered, for about 2 minutes. Never microwave them: the fat overheats and separates while the pasta is still cold. Do not freeze them once cooked, since the filling turns grainy on thawing. Browned butter itself keeps 2 weeks refrigerated in a jar.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 first course portions of 8 ravioli:
Calories: 890 kcal
Total Fat: 62 g
Saturated Fat: 32 g
Trans Fat: 1 g
Unsaturated Fat: 28 g
Cholesterol: 430 mg
Sodium: 720 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 52 g
Fiber: 2 g
Total Sugars: 6 g
Added Sugars: 3 g
Protein: 24 g
Lactose: 1.2 g
Principal micronutrients: vitamin A, vitamin B12, iron, copper, folate, calcium, phosphorus, selenium
These figures are estimates. This is a rich first course by design, and the cholesterol and saturated fat are high because foie gras and butter are the defining ingredients.
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