Buckwheat Ravioli update

I love holiday cooking. But this Christmas, I faced some new challenges.  One visiting son has been vegetarian for the last decade. The other is now following the new "vegan before 6" regimen.  And for the past year, my husband (and I) have been trying to eat a low-salt diet.

For Christmas Eve dinner, I proposed a traditional Slovenian treat I had made more than a year earlier: buckwheat ravioli with cheese-millet filling, otherwise known as ajdovi krapi. Everyone approved.

My husband and I had enjoyed my first version of ajdovi krapi.  There was one small drawback: the all-buckwheat dough hadn't been as pliable and tender as the typical noodle dough.  I had to cut the dough into rough circles and tamp them together.  The end product, although tasty, was what I would call "rustic."   My mother was more blunt: Too dry, she said.

This time, I decided to make a more refined version.  So I used the the same dough that I used to make  buckwheat struklji, here, which combines buckwheat and white wheat flour.

For the filling, I followed my original recipe, here, with two small changes. Instead of salt, I used a salt-free seasoning mix.  And for an added flavor boost, I browned the millet before cooking.

I doubled the filling, to match the larger quantity of pasta dough in that struklji recipe.  (So I did end up with leftover filling.)

It worked beautifully!   Since the dough was more pliable, I was able to shape into folded and crimped triangles, instead of putting two circles of dough together. The end product looked like the zlikrofi or wontons I recalled from childhood.

This may become a regular addition to our holiday table!

To see the original version, with more photos, go here.

Buckwheat Ravioli, updated

Dough:

1 ½ c. white flour
½ c. buckwheat flour
1 t. salt
2 T olive oil
1 egg
½ cup hot water, plus 2 T more if needed


Filling:

1 cup millet (dry measure), cooked* and cooled
3 cups farmer cheese or ricotta
1-2 eggs, beaten
salt-free seasoning mix, to taste (or regular salt, if preferred)
fresh parsley to taste, minced

*Tastiest way: brown millet in dry skillet, add 2 cups water, cover and cook until water is absorbed.
(Easiest: add millet to large pot of boiling water, simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, drain.)


First, make the filling: Mix cooked millet, cheese, egg, salt substitute and parsley. Refrigerate.

For the dough:  Sift the flours and salt into a bowl.  Beat the egg and oil together and stir into the flour.  Add enough hot water to make a stiff dough.  Knead dough until smooth and elastic, adding a little more flour if necessary.  Form into a ball and let rest, covered, for 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough on a floured board, thinly, as for noodles. Cut into 3 x 3 inch squares. Place a spoon of filling on one side of rectangle, fold over, and seal edges with the tines of a fork. (Note: This makes a lot of filling, so you will probably have extra. Alternatively, you can cut into large circles and fold over, or you can sandwich 2 smaller circles together.

Drop the ravioli into a large pot of boiling salted water, a few at a time, and cook until done.  Drain and served with buttered breadcrumbs or (our favorite) ajvar and Greek yogurt.

Slovenian Dinner Week 28: Buckwheat Ravioli with Cheese-Millet Filling, Vegetarian and Gluten-Free!

Menu
Buckwheat Ravioli with Cheese-Millet Filling (Ajdovi Krapi)
Ajvar and Greek Yogurt
Parsley Chicken ā la Jacques Pépin
Green Salad

I first discovered buckwheat pockets, or buckwheat ravioli, in the bilingual vegetarian cooking blog of a young Slovenian woman. The ingredients seemed so simple and wholesome: buckwheat flour, farmer cheese, millet.

The Slovenian name she gave for the dish was ajdovi krapi.  (I-dough-vee krah-pee). There was nothing like it in my vintage Slovenian American cookbooks.  So I figured this must be her original creation.  A vegetarian twist that was far removed from traditional, meat-heavy Slovenian cooking.

But I was wrong.

A few months later, I discovered a half dozen references to this wholesome traditional dumpling,  sometimes with recipes included.  Ajdovi krapi turned up on Slovenian government websites, on blogs, and in an except from a recent book by a Slovenian cooking expert.  But that original blog had disappeared.

To figure out a recipe, I had to do my own metric conversions, and sometimes my own translations.  As usual, Google Translate was an awkard tool.  The low point was one surreal suggestion about how to serve these intriguing dumplings:

". . . top with sour cream and cold sores."

Umm, no thanks!  Sour cream and cracklings, the correct translaton, did sound a little more appetizing, but I liked the idea of a meat-free entree.  If nothing else, it would be a change of pace.

This project turned out to be more challenging than I expected.

It started with the Russian-style farmer cheese I bought for the filling.  When I opened the container,  I discovered a strange fuzzy film of mold on top.  Luckily, the cheese shop was just around the corner, so I was able to exchange it without too much trouble.

Then, perhaps because of the metric conversions, I ended up pouring too much water into the buckwheat flour.  And I forgot that I had never made an all-buckwheat dough before. So I was a little thrown by the sticky mass and had to knead in more more flour.

Ultimately, it all worked out.  Read on!




Buckwheat Ravioli/Ajdovi Krapi


1 1/2 cups buckwheat flour
1/4 c. boiling salted water  (more if needed)
1 egg, beaten

1/2 c. millet, cooked in boiling salted water and drained
1 1/2 cups farmer cheese or ricotta
1 egg, beaten
salt to taste
fresh parsley to taste, minced

First,  make the filling: Cook millet in boiling salted water for 20 minutes.  Drain and cool. Mix in cheese, egg, salt, and parsley.  Refrigerate.

For dough: Pour about 1/4 c. boiling salted water into buckwheat flour and stir with a spoon to make a stiff dough.  Let cool slightly, then add egg and knead until smooth. Cover and let sit for 30 minutes.

Roll out the buckwheat dough on a floured board, thinly, as for noodles.

For shaping the ravioli, there are a few choices.   Typically, squares or rounds of dough are folded over a spoonful of filling.  But the all-buckwheat dough didn't seem pliable enough for that.  So I decided to sandwich together pairs of  3-inch rounds. (See the photo below.)  Don't forget to seal the edges with a fork!

Cook the ravioli, a few at a time, in boiling salted water for 20 minutes.  Drain.

For serving, there are two traditional accompaniments: Buttered bread crumbs, or sour cream and cracklings :-)

For that first night,  I kept it simple and light: Plain boiled ravioli with ajvar and yogurt.  My husband decided to contribute one of his favorite quick entrees, from a Jacques Pépin recipe: boneless chicken sauteed with garlic and parsley.  (I suspect he had some doubts about how my buckwheat dumplings would turn out!)

The next night, we went completely vegetarian.  My husband sauteed the leftover ravioli with  mushrooms and red peppers.  With a green salad alongside, it was a fine dinner.

The verdict:  Delicious and versatile!  We kept on eating these wholesome buckwheat dumplings all week long.   I froze some for my Slovenian American mom to try.  She was the lone dissenting voice.  She didn't recall anything like this from her childhood in Cleveland.  "Too dry," she thought.

Buckwheat does have a hearty, assertive flavor.  For the faint of heart, the dough can be made with a blend of buckwheat and white wheat flour, as I did with my struklji recipe.  But we liked it this way!

Here are is how it looked, step-by-step: