Corn Tamale Ravioli with Spicy Chipotle Sauce
As the summer winds down, my obsession with late summer corn only grows. Most of my corn ideas pair it with a chile of some sort, and this time is no different. I wanted to do something with tamales and I started thinking how it’s a shame that the corn husk gets thrown away. What about some sort of edible tamale container? The tamale ravioli was born.
This sauce was fiery and dark red. It was a very simple tomato meatsauce with a ton of chipotle. The swirl in this picture is heavy cream.
I made a one and a half batch of fresh pasta.
The tamale filling: fresh corn, jalapeno, and masa harina. Next add some water and cheese.
Make sure you have people to help make the ravioli. It’s a little early for a Halloween shirt, no?
Just over a tablespoon of filling in each one.
These had to boil a bit longer so that the tamale dough would fully cook. I left the pasta slightly thicker so it wouldn’t overcook.
These flavors came together really well! The sweet corn dough was soft and cooling compared to the harsh spicy sauce.
These were a little too spicy for some of my new roommates, so I really need to remember that with future dishes. It’s much different than cooking for my last roomate!
The sauce is really hot! by itself, the sauce is easily a 7. If you had it heavily dressed on pasta it would be about a 6.4. Paired properly with these doughy ravioli (lightly sauced like in the picture) I give this dish a 5.5
Corn Tamale Ravioli with Spicy Chipotle Sauce
Ingredients
- 1/2 Pound Ground Beef
- 1 Onion diced
- 3 Cloves Garlic minced
- 2 Cans Chipotle Peppers in Adobo
- 2 28 ounce cans Whole Peeled Tomatoes
- 1 Pint Cream
- Homemade Pasta Sheets linked above
- 2 Cups Masa Harina
- 2 Cobs Corn
- 1 Jalapeno seeded and small diced
- 8 Ounces Sharp Cheddar
Instructions
- Brown half lb of ground beef, remove from pan, drain most of the fat but keep some in the pan. Saute a diced onion in the fat until it starts to brown. Add 3 cloves diced garlic, cook 2 minutes. Add 3 cans of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce with most of the seeds removed. Cook a few more minutes, then add 2 large cans of whole peeled tomatoes. Cook this for about 10 minutes, then blend until smooth. Put the beef back in and add ¾ of a pint of cream and let this simmer slowly for about an hour. Finish with the rest of that cream pint just before serving.
- First make a one and a half recipe of homemade pasta and stick it into the fridge. Next mix up 2 cups masa harina, corn from 2 cobs (be sure to scrape cobs for extra juice and flavor), a very diced and seeded jalapeno, and about a cup and a half of water. It should form a nice smooth peanutbutter-y texture. You may need to add more or less water to achieve the right texture. Mix in 8 oz of sharp cheddar. This amount should be perfect for the amount of pasta dough, and the recipe makes about 10 or more servings.
- Roll out your dough but don’t go to the thinnest setting. I went to the second thinnest. This is because the filling takes a little longer to cook so a thicker pasta is less likely to overcook in the time it takes to cook the tamale dough. Fill your ravioli with a little more than a tablespoon of tamale dough. Try and keep it together in a ball or square shape as you make the ravioli because in the end these tasted better than the ones that got flattened out too much. Cook your ravioli 9-10 minutes and don’t stir too often to prevent breaking. Strain and immediately toss with the sauce. Top with cilantro.
- You probably want to do the ravioli in 2 batches to not overcrowd the pot. Also you will have WAY more sauce than you need. Freeze the rest or toss it into some spaghetti.
As time consuming as this would be to make I can absolutely see it being worth it.
Although, you clearly took that into account with the suggestion to get help making the ravioli itself.
Terrific sauce recipe, though. Don’t really have a good spicy spaghetti sauce recipe, at the moment.
This sounds delicious! I wish someone would show up at my door with a platter of these right now!
Would these work if you did them more like Empanadas rather than Ravioli?
If so, would you bake them? Or pan fry them to crispen (huh, apparently crispen is not a word, according to my spell checker) to crispen up the pasta shell?
Yummy looking and innovative! I love combining staples of different cuisines into a new dish. My only addition if I make this will be cheese. I think that it would be justified, by the fact that both Italian and Latin cuisines make frequent use of cheese, no?
Meg – There is plenty of cheddar mixed in with the tamale dough. It’s listed in the recipe and under the picture, I just didn’t get a picture of it.
I’m pretty sure Ministry would disagree with you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXtX9u7_6F8
Duh, I see sharp cheddar there now, as plain as day. I am sorry I missed that. Now I know this is a recipe I need to try!