If you are feeling fancy this spring, go out and harvest some garlic mustard for this elegant garlic mustard recipe! These creamy filled ravioli are laminated with garlic mustard for a little extra whimsy, making your plate as beautiful as a day in the woods. The beautiful little ravioli are filled with tender and slightly bitter garlic mustard, along with a simple lemony cashew cheese. Top simply with salt, olive oil, and pepper for the prettiest garlic mustard recipe you’ve ever made.
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Why Eat Garlic Mustard?
Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolate) is a perfect edible plant in the United States. It grows in most (although not all) areas, it is super abundant, all parts of the plant are edible, it’s both nutritious and delicious and it’s highly invasive. Garlic mustard first appears early in the spring, and persists throughout the summer into fall. At some point in the summer it becomes more bitter and tough, but before then it’s prime pickings. Garlic mustard (even in it’s prime) is a little bitter, but has the soft texture of baby spinach along with a garlicky flavor. It’s perfect for pesto! It’s filled with vitamins and minerals, and is defiantly nutritious enough to be considered a superfood. And since it’s invasive in the United States, you really can’t harvest too much of it. Garlic mustard is easy enough to identify once you put a little work in. It grows in two fairly different looking forms, first year rosettes and second year stalks. For this garlic mustard recipe, I used the second year plants as it offers more variation and fun shapes for laminated pasta in it’s seed pods and flowers. For more on identifying garlic mustard, please check out this previous post I wrote.
Looking for Garlic Mustard Recipes? Try one of these!
- Spring Garlic Mustard Ramen Noodles
- Wild Garlic Mustard Tartlets
- Try substituting the kale for garlic mustard in thisStir-Fried Korean Sweet Potato Noodles (Japchae) with Kale
- Or add a little to the spinach in thisVegan Spinach and Chickpea Curry
Laminated Pasta- Because Food Can be Pretty!
Okay, so laminated pasta is a totally unnecessary step in the ravioli making process, but it’s beautiful and it’s a great way to use a little more of this nutritious plant. My original hope was that the tiny white garlic mustard flowers would be visible through the pasta dough, but sadly that was not the case. Instead I was greeted by a delightful surprise- the seed pods and small leaves I added shone through like veins of marble or fossils in limestone. While laminated pasta might be better suited to a dish that doesn’t need to hold a filling (like a linguine), I was also pleasantly surprised to find that not one of my ravioli burst in the pot. Laminating pasta is all about rolling your noodles until they’re almost transparent, then adding a layer of edible leaves, herbs, or flowers. After that, top with a second layer of pasta and gently press down to remove the air bubbles and stick the pasta together. No water or egg needed to stick the pasta together, just give it another run through the pasta machine. And there you have it- perfectly stunning pasta! Not only is it beautiful, but it adds some soft notes of flavor to your noodles.
Ravioli Making Tools
You don’t need fancy tools to make homemade ravioli, but a few simple ones can help. Honestly, even those are optional, but especially when laminating the pasta you’ll be happy to have them. The first is a pasta machine– this is a great tool for anyone who wants to make homemade pasta on any sort of basis- I probably use mine four times a year, but it’s worth the cabinet space because it gives me quick and uniform pasta in no time. Pasta machines basically roll out your dough thinly for you, and some come with attachments to cut your noodles into uniform shapes. Since pasta machines aren’t standardized in their numbering conventions with regards to pasta thickness, I thought it would be helpful to note that the machine I use goes from 0-9, where 0 is the thickest and 9 is the thinnest.
The other tool I made use of in this recipe is a ravioli press. I don’t think that this is as essential, but they’re relatively cheap, make life quicker, and are kind of fun to use. I actually got mine for free from a couple who had never used it, and it’s been fun to break out every now and then! It comes with two parts, a metal frame and a plastic dimplier. The metal part has sharp edges surrounding twelve holes, and the dimplier simply makes it easier to neatly fill the ravioli. You’ll also need a rolling pin to use one of these tools. You can also make ravioli without any gadgets- just lay out one sheet of pasta, distribute the filling in evenly placed rounds and use a little water around the edges to seal. Top with a second sheet of paste, gently press the edges together and the air out, and cut out the individual ravioli.
Making this Garlic Mustard Recipe
I’ve already described some of this in the above paragraphs, but let’s go into more detail here on the bits I missed. Pick a whole bunch of garlic mustard, and separate it into the large leaves and the smaller leaves and seed pods. The smaller leaves and seed pods will be used in laminating the pasta, so try and keep the leaves small as larger leaves will leave the ravioli less flexible and more prone to breaking. To make the filling, microwave the garlic mustard, making sure it’s still a little damp from being washed- this is basically a quick way of steaming it a little. Chop it up finely. Next we’re going to soften our cashews by boiling them, and blend them to make a simple lemony cheese. Mix the cheese with the steamed garlic mustard, and the filling is complete!
I described all of this in more detail above, but the basic steps for the rest are:
- Make the dough, and let it rest.
- Roll out the pasta
- Add flowers and seed pods to laminate the pasta
- Roll out the laminated pasta
- Form the ravioli
- Cook the ravioli- this happens much more quickly with fresh pasta!
- Eat and enjoy! Serve with olive oil, salt and pepper. Top with some garlic mustard flowers for an extra touch!
Garlic Mustard Recipe: Laminated Wild Ravioli
Garlic Mustard Recipe: Laminated Wild Ravioli
Prep Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Yield: 28 raviolis
Ingredients
- 2 cups (240g) all-purpose flour
- Pinch of salt
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 cup cashews
- 2 tbsp. nutritional yeast
- Juice of half a lemon
- ½ tsp. salt
- 2 ½ cups garlic mustard, well packed, separated (see instruction #3 for details in processing)
For the pasta dough:
For the Filling:
Instructions
- The first step to making these raviolis is to go and harvest your garlic mustard. Since different plants have different amounts of leaves, it’s hard to give you an exact number to shoot for, but I ended up using about 40 second year plants. Go ahead and pick extra, as this plant is very invasive in the US and won’t be harmed by over picking.
- Next make your pasta dough. Whisk to combine the salt and flour, and then add the olive oil and ½ cup of water. Use a spoon and then your hands to combine into a fairly dry, stiff dough. If needed, add a splash more water. Kneed the dough for around 10 minutes, or until the dough becomes uniform and smooth. Cover with a clean dish cloth and set aside to rest for at least 20 minutes.
- Process the garlic mustard. You will need roughly 2 cups of well packed leaves for the filling, and an additional ½ cup (don’t pack this part!) of small leaves, flowers, and seed pods. Fill your sink or a large bowl up with cool water, and swish around the garlic mustard to clean it. Remove the leaves and flowers from the stems, placing the large leaves into a microwave safe bowl and placing the flowers and smaller leaves, along with the seed pods in a small bowl. From an aesthetic point of view, the small clusters of seed pods are the most stunning part, peeking through
- the laminated pasta. Set the small bowl of flowers and set pods aside, and process the larger bowl by sprinkling with water and microwaving for 30 seconds, turning or mixing the leaves, and then microwaving for another 30 seconds. Use a knife to chop the leaves finely, and set aside.
- To make the rest of the filling, boil your cashews for 10 minutes to soften, and then drain. Add them to a blender along with the nutritional yeast, salt, lemon juice, and ¼ cup water. Blend into a smooth, soft-cheese like consistency, adding a little more water if needed. Then place the cashew mixture in a bowl with the chopped and microwaved garlic mustard, and stir to combine. Set aside.
- It’s time to make and assemble your ravioli- for this recipe I will be using a pasta machine to roll the dough (one where the largest setting is 0) and a 12 piece ravioli press to help form the ravioli- you can use other tools if you like, and just modify the instructions to work for you. Divide the dough into two equally weighted pieces, and use your pasta machine to roll the dough into a long thin strip- handle gently as it should be quite thin. Roll it through the pasta machine, lowering the setting, until you’ve reached 5 or 6 on your dial. Place the pasta on a clean and floured counter top, and repeat with the second half.
- To laminate your pasta, cover one sheet with the garlic mustard leaves, flowers, and seed pods, distributing them evenly and not placing any within ¼ inch of the edge. Cover with the second sheet of pasta, using your hands to gently press the two sheets together and push out any air bubbles. Then place your pasta machine on the first setting, and gently roll the laminated pasta through. Stop after you get to around setting #3 on your machine.
- Make your ravioli by flouring the metal part of your ravioli press, and placing a layer of the laminated pasta dough on top cutting it to fit. Use the plastic dimpler to press the shape of the ravioli in, and then add about 1 tsp. of the cashew and garlic mustard filling into each pocket. Cover with a second piece of the laminated pasta dough (cutting it to fit), and go over the top of the press with a rolling pin, pushing to cut along the edges of the press. Flip the ravioli out of the press onto a floured baking sheet. If there are any places where the filling broke through, you can patch it with a little bit of spare dough. Otherwise, continue on until all the dough and/or filling is used.
- Place a pot of water on to boil, and season with salt once boiling. Cook the ravioli in small batches, removing them from the water once they float to the top- they won’t need more than a minute in the boiling water. Coat the ravioli with olive oil, and serve with freshly ground salt and pepper.
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