Doc V's Healthy Kitchen

Warm orange color of pumpkin, curry and  turmeric with a little green accent on a black plate… in ravioli.

For 4-5p start with the pasta dough. Mix 250 grams of fine semolina with 1 egg, a pinch of salt, 1 table spoon of turmeric. Knead and add some water until you obtain a smooth dough. Store the dough in plastic foil, in the fridge.

Cut a butternut in cubes. Mix with a drizzle of olive oil, 1 table spoon of cumin seeds and 1 table spoon of curry powder. Put on baking paper on a tray and bake at 180° until the pumpkin is soft. Keep 500 grams of the pumpkin and store the other part in the freezer for another recipe.

Boil 100 grams of beluga lentils in salted water for approx 15, max 20 mins (al dente). Mix half of this portion with the pumpkin.

For the green accent, instead of the usual green salad, I decide to make a green oil, made by blending a handful of rocket salad, a handful of fresh basil, a handful of baby spinach, 1 garlic clove, pepper salt and oil. Taste and add extra pepper or salt.

Divide the pasta dough in 4 portions. Flour the table and the rolling pin. Knead the dough once more and add some semolina if necessary. Unroll in a thin layer (this can also be done with a pasta machine, of course, but I prefer the manual style for pasta sheets and ravioli.

Make the ravioli. Close the edges with a fork. Small ravioli = more pasta /less filling and large ravioli = more filling/less pasta = my favorite. Store leftovers of the pasta dough in the fridge and use it in a few days. Put the ravioli on a towel or baking sheet and put some extra flour in between the layers. Store cool.

For the sauce, melt 1 table spoon of butter in a saucepan. Bake 1 chopped onion, 3 cm of chopped fresh ginger, 4 chopped garlic cloves and some pineapple (or even better apple, but the last one was gone 😉 ). Add 1 table spoon of curry (I used an Indonesion mixture which is softer than the Indian mixtures) and 1 table spoon of flour. Bake and stir constantly. Add first some water (150ml). Stir constantly with a wisk. Add 150-200 ml of milk. The sauce gets a lovely color. Allow to boil to thicken the sauce, but don’t stop stirring. Add salt or ½ cube of chicken stock to improve the flavor. Add the other half of the lentils. Store the sauce cool if you do all of this in advance.

‘Le moment suprême’!! Reheat the sauce on a low fire. Boil  salted water in a large pan. Put the ravioli one by one in the boiling water. Remove them when they appear at the surface. Keep warm.

Try to preheat the plates. Put a few ravioli on each plate. Add some sauce and finish with a few dashes of the green oil.