from 101 cookbooks

Sausage, fennel, goat cheese and apple ravioli with lemon cream sauce

The filling
12 oz. ground sausage (gourmet if you can, but Jimmy Dean is fine)
3 apples, sliced (pref. Gala)
1 small onion
1 bulb fresh fennel (take off fibrous outer skin and slice very thinly)
8 oz. crumbled goat cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup bread crumbs (I use panko)

In a large pan, cook thinly sliced apples, fennel and onions until golden - aiming for slightly caramelized but not burnt. I add a pinch of sugar and a pinch of lemon while cooking. Keep heat medium to low and let them get really soft.

Meanwhile, cook sausage in a separate pan until browned. Drain grease and set sausage aside.

When everything is cooked and cooled, mix apple, fennel and onion mixture with the sausage. Incorporate well and add the goat cheese and bread crumbs. Mixture should be stiff, but pliable. Taste, and add salt and pepper to taste. Once you're satisfied, add the breadcrumbs a bit at a time - these are just to give the mixture a little body and keep it together. Finally, add one beaten egg. Spoon a small amount into your ravioli dough.

Homemade Ravioli

You'll need a pasta machine to do this right. I've adapted this from a number of recipes.

1 cup cake flour (nice, but not required)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup of warm water
1 tbsp. olive oil

To really make authentic pasta dough, pour the flour onto a smooth surface and make a well in the center. Add salt, olive oil and eggs to the center, ideally not letting it spill over the sides of the well. Gently pinch at the sides of the well, incorporating the flour into the eggs and olive oil. If you do it right, you end up with a nice ball of dough to which you can add the water as needed until it is a pliable consistency. Knead, then set aside to rest for about an hour.
After it rests, cut the ball in quarters. Put the dough through the widest setting on your pasta machine. Roll through a couple times, patting with a small amount of flour. Continue to increase the setting, making the dough thinner and thinner. Ravioli dough should be thin, but not see-through, to make it tender.

Meyer Lemon Cream Sauce

3 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. flour
1 cup whole milk, warmed
Juice of 1/2 Meyer (or regular) Lemon
1/4 cup Fume Blanc

Melt butter, then add flour, whisking briskly. Let the mixture cook down and brown about 2 minutes, but make sure it doesn�t burn. Add the warmed milk and stir until you have a nice, smooth sauce. Add the lemon, stirring quickly and the wine. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle over the top of the raviolis.