Hedgehog porcini ravioli & Hedgehog Awareness Week

Hedgehog Awareness Week has started once again, and it would be great if each and every one of us could do at least one small thing during the week to raise hedgehog awareness or directly help hedgehogs. If you have a garden, leave a shallow bowl of water out and make sure that there's a gap in your fence so that hedgehogs can access your garden. Read for more hints and tips how to help the spiny creatures on the webpage of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. 

I've had a tradition now for a few years to make hedgehog shaped ravioli for the hedgehog week, and this year was no different. This time I made brown pasta dyed with dried porcini mushrooms with earthy porcini filling. I thought I'd keep everything else simple and let the mushroom flavour be the star of the dish. This worked out very nicely and all hogs held together during the boiling!

Have a look at my recipe:

Ingredients

Pasta:

200 g pasta flour

2 eggs

1 tsp salt

15 g dried porcini mushrooms

Filling:

15 g dried porcini mushrooms

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

30 g grated vegetarian pasta cheese

3 tbsp breadcrumbs

Sprinkle of salt

Sprinkle of ground black pepper

Handful of fresh basil leaves

Served with:

Basil and garlic infused olive oil

Lambs lettuce

Method

Soak all dried porcini mushrooms (15 g + 15 g) in water for about 30 minutes. Drain them, but save the porcini water and purée the mushrooms into a smooth paste. Take the half to use in the pasta dough.

Knead the dough ingredients together and let the dough rest in the fridge for one hour. Add some of the porcini water to the dough, if needed. You can also add it to moisten and flavour the filling later.

Chop the onion and garlic for the filling finely and fry them in little olive oil until soft. Mix all ingredients for the filling together.

Then roll the pasta out. Make thin sheets with a pasta machine, cut the ravioli into shapes and fill them.

Cook in salt water for a few minutes and serve.

I would like to share this pasta recipe with Pasta Please vegetarian pasta cooking challenge, which is hosted this month by Chris from Thinly Spread and co-hosted by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes.

Have a wonderful Hedgehog Awareness Week!

Your VegHog