This Roasted Duck Sweet Potato Ravioli is served with a Sage Cream Sauce for a sophisticated, fall pasta dish that’s sure to impress!
Admittedly, I am much more of a summer person than any other season. It’s hard for me to get into the fall spirit of things. Maybe it’s because I’m not a huge pumpkin fan. Gasp! I know. But, I am very much a sweet potato fan, and that totally counts as a fall food, right? Right!
I love how simple this Roasted Duck Sweet Potato Ravioli dish is, but how complex the flavors work together. Duck has such a pronounced and very identifiable taste to it. A lot of people complain that duck is a very oily meat. And it is…when it’s not cooked properly. Duck is a naturally fatty animal because they need an extra layer to keep themselves warm in the water. The way to combat the extra fat is by rendering it completely. When I finished roasting my duck legs, the amount of fat in my cast iron skillet tripled! The result was a non-greasy, delicious duck filling for the ravioli.
Roasted Duck Sweet Potato Ravioli
I love making pasta from scratch. There is a very notable difference not only in texture, but taste as well. Going through that extra effort of making your own ravioli dough, though time consuming, is well worth it in the long run. If you would like to read my secrets to making amazing ravioli from home, this post is definitely worth your read.
Making plain pasta dough is one thing, making flavored pasta dough is a whole new ball game. You have to take into consideration the added moisture of the element you’re flavoring your pasta with. While sweet potatoes are not as wet as tomatoes, they still have moisture in and of themselves. In order to combat the extra moisture, I roast them in the oven on a bed of salt and herbs. This achieves two things:
- Salt absorbs the moisture, and
- Herbs infuse the potatoes with awesome flavor.
The result of baking your potatoes like this is that you get rid of a lot of the moisture in the potatoes and you set yourself up for an awesome tasting pasta dough. I do the same thing for my homemade gnocchi as well.
Keep in mind, when making your raviolis, the size of the filling. Depending on how big of raviolis you’re making, I would use anywhere from 1/4 teaspoon to one teaspoon of filling. Even though those numbers don’t seem big enough, it really is when you start laying out the filling on the rolled dough.
Sage Cream Sauce
As for the Sage Cream Sauce, nothing could be easier than infusing cream with sage. Sage is such a pungent herb that it releases its fragrance very easily! Adding a touch of marscapone cheese to the sauce gives it body and thickness.
Enjoy this fun fall pasta dish; it’s sure to impress anyone lucky enough to eat it!
Ingredients
- 2 each duck legs
- 1/3 cup marscapone cheese
- To taste, salt and pepper
- 1/8 tsp ground sage
- ¼ tsp ground thyme
- 3 small sweet potatoes, poked with a fork
- ¾ cup salt
- 2 sprigs rosemary
- 5 sprigs thyme
- 2 sprigs sage
- 3 cups semolina flour
- 2 eggs
- 1 batch duck filling
- ½ batch sweet potato pasta dough
- 1 egg, beaten for egg wash
- Extra semolina flour
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 sprigs sage
- 28 each ravioli
- 2 tablespoons marscapone cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375ºF. Heat a medium size skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Warm up about 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in the skillet. Season duck legs with salt and pepper and ground herbs.
- Place duck legs skin side down in cast iron skillet and begin to render fat and caramelize the skin. After about 4 minutes, turn the legs over to brown the other side. Remove skillet from stove top and place in oven and roast until duck is done, about 25 minutes. Remove legs from pan and cool until you can pull the meat.
- Once duck is cool, shred the meat and chop it until small. Place in a small mixing bowl, along with marscapone cheese, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside until ready to use.
- On a small baking sheet, cover the bottom of the sheet with a single layer of salt. Place herbs on top of salt and potatoes on top of herbs. Bake in oven at 350ºF for about 50 minutes, or until soft.
- When potatoes are done cooking, remove from skins and place in a mixing bowl, fitted with dough hook attachment. Add flour and eggs and begin to mix dough together. Knead dough for about 7 minutes, until a soft dough ball forms. Depending on how the wetness of the dough feels, you may need to add additional flour to the dough.
- Once a soft dough ball is achieved, wrap it in plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
- Once you are ready to make ravioli, cut the dough ball into workable portions. Using a pasta roller (either a KitchenAid® attachment or a counter set one), begin to roll out pasta dough with the widest setting. Fold the dough in half and rolling, repeating this process a few times to create layers, begin to stretch the dough through narrower settings, ending at the 3rd to narrowest setting (depending on the roller, it could be 3 or 6).
- Cover the workspace in semolina flour to prevent the dough from sticking and cut the pasta dough in half (easier to work with). With a teaspoon, begin to place small amounts of filling along the dough, leaving space to create the ravioli.
- Once the sheet of pasta dough has been lined with duck filling, egg wash the boarders of the dough and in between each filling ball. Place another pasta sheet on top and press together. Work around each ravioli, making sure to get air out of each space to prevent air bubbles when cooking.
- Continue until all of the duck filling has been used. Place raviolis on semolina dusted sheet pans and cook immediately or freeze until ready to use.
- Bring a large pot of water to boil and season liberally with salt. Cook raviolis for about 3 minutes or until raviolis float to the top (air bubbles will give the false illusion that the ravioli is ready before it really is).
- In a medium skillet, bring cream and sage to a boil and allow to sit for the sage to infuse the cream completely. Use a whisk and incorporate marscapone in the cream. When the raviolis are done cooking, remove from boiling water with a slotted spoon. Place raviolis in cream and cover.
- For fancy garnish, consider frying (briefly) sage in vegetable oil.
Notes
Home Chef Tip: If you are not using a mixer to make the pasta dough, pass the sweet potatoes through a ricer or fine mesh strainer, then mix potatoes, semolina flour, and egg together.
We hope you love this Roasted Duck Sweet Potato Ravioli recipe from SoFabFood Home Chef, Marlee from I Just Make Sandwiches, as much as we do. If you enjoyed this delightful recipe, be sure to stop by our Dinner Section to find more like it. For daily recipe inspiration, subscribe to our newsletter, like us on Facebook, and follow us Pinterest. Enjoy!
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