Corn and Chorizo Ravioli with Goat Cheese Cream and Chile Drizzle

Sunday April 10

This recipe comes from the Southwest Tastes cookbook that JoDee gave Holt some years ago. It is all one complicated dish from Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe, which we simplified.

First, we cooked a big batch of the chorizo the night before. What we weren't going to use we froze in tuppers, because it's great in chilaquiles or with huevos revueltos. Mexican chorizo is loose like sloppy joe, not sausage-y like the Spanish kind.

New Mexican Cinnamon Chorizo

1 lb. ground pork

1/2 lb. ground chuck

water

oil

1 large clove garlic, minced

4 Tbsp. ground ancho or New Mexican chile (Hatch if possible - if you use commercial "chili powder," delete cumin, below)

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/4 tsp. ground arbol chile or cayenne

2 pinches ground cloves

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 tsps. kosher or sea salt (half that for table salt)

Moisten the chopped meats with a tablespoon or two of water. Heat a thin film of oil in the pan and cook, crumbling the meat fine, on medium low until it's no longer pink but not brown. When almost done, add garlic, spices and salt, stirring and toasting a minute or two.

Add water to just about cover meat and simmer on very low heat, stirring and checking occasionally, 2 hours until very soft and all water absorbed, but still luscious and juicy. Done!

If you're going to stuff this into ravioli, take about a cup and whizz it fine in the food processor.

Corn Pasta (24 ravioli)

1/2 cup masa harina

1 cup unbleached flour

pinch of salt

2 large eggs

2 tsps. olive oil

2 tsps. water

Whizz up dry ingredients in the food processor and then add wet ones until mixture just begins to form a ball. On a lightly floured surface knead dough for a few minutes. Wrap ball in plastic wrap and let rest in fridge at least 15 minutes, preferably more.

Divide the dough into 4 parts and roll each through the pasta machine from lowest setting to high (5). The pasta was very friable, but we kept refolding and rolled it through several times on each number of the roller, and it came out okay: four sheets, so two trays of 12 ravioli each. But don't press the ravioli impresser (you know, the thing that dents the bottom layer to hold the stuffings) in too hard, or it pops the fragile pasta. Holt succeeded in patching them, and stuffed each raviolo with a modest spoonful of chorizo.

We had a pot of boiling water ready to boil them ca. 2 mins, until they floated to the surface and could be delicately fished out and drained. We had also gotten together our two sauces:

Goat Cheese Cream

Pour about a half cup of heavy cream in a saucepan, bring to boil, and let reduce 5 mins. Crumble in 2 oz. mild goat cheese and whisk smooth, then add a couple of pats of butter. Use this to fill the (heated) serving plates.

Chile Drizzle

In a tiny saucepan, combine 2 tsps. of adobo sauce from a can or jar of chipotle chiles with 2 Tbsps. of water. Simmer and stir on low heat until reduced to saucelike consistency.

Put the cooked ravioli on the cream-filled plates, and drizzle with a spoonful of chile.

Labor-intensive, but worth it.