This Is Getting Nuts

     Being quite passionate about food and cooking, I keep an on-going culinary bucket list. An item that's been on my list is making acorn flour. As someone who is in the woods often and that also has many oak trees on my property, I come across many acorns, but it still took a couple of years to finally get serious and collect said nuts and get busy. And that my friends was an understatement! Collecting enough for a usable amount of flour, sorting through them and removing any that had been penetrated by weevils or just not edible quality took some time, as did shelling, drying & grinding. Although shelling was the most time consuming, the final step of grinding was the one I found most difficult because I couldn't find the tool for the job. The nutmeats were so hard when I finished drying them that I was afraid to put them in my food processor, electric coffee grinder or blender for fear of damaging them. I finally settled on an antique-style coffee mill powered by elbow grease. Yikes, what a workout just to get enough for one batch of pasta dough. And that's only using 25-30% acorn flour with the remaining being all purpose flour.

    Now I am not anywhere close to being an authority on this subject as this was my first and possibly only time doing this so I won't go to deeply into the process, but I will say however that there are numerous methods of  rendering flour or meal from acorns and it is quite possible that the method I chose resulted in my difficult outcome. One of the issues that must be dealt with is removing the tannins that are a part of most acorns. The two ways I came across of doing this are cold-water & hot-water leaching. I chose hot-water which produced a darker finished flour. I also dried them in a dehydrator that rendered the nuts very hard contributing I believe to my grinding issues.

    Once I had enough ground flour I was able to concoct a recipe of dough and make a batch of ravioli  filled with the one ingredient that cried out for this marriage...Squirrel of course!  Oh, I know what you must be thinking, I've heard it all, they're dirty, they're cute, that's gross...tree rats! Guess what.............    they taste great. Yes, they're small and don't have the meat yield of larger game animals but of all the small game I've hunted including quail, pheasant, rabbit & woodcock, I would choose squirrel every time on the basis of taste, texture & availability. Now the neighborhood I live in they run rampant, and I could certainly keep myself well supplied quite easily but that's not my jam and it would undoubtedly land me in the doghouse with my sweetie even though they are utterly destructive little buggers. 

No, it's being out in the woods, enjoying nature, watching the sun come up & go down. Observing wildlife do what wildlife does and if I do everything right and with some luck added in, I might just bring home some wonderful, local food, harvested ethically.

    I'm usually fairly successful every season bagging enough for me to make a few dishes that will satisfy me. I've done stew, both in cast iron on the stove top & in the slow-cooker, fried and southern-style stew with dumplings which is my personal favorite done with rolled out dumplings, somewhere between pasta & pie dough, this stuff is simple to make and absolutely amazing! Possible future video/blogpost for sure. But this time I had my sights set on doing something a bit different, a recipe that would include multiple items acquired from a very close geographical proximity and have them unite in a palette pleasing way. My original thought was to do a squirrel ravioli that had foraged, wild mushrooms combined with the squirrel meat and filled into a a pasta dough made with acorn flour and served with a roasted acorn squash cream sauce. well as much as I searched, acorn squash was nowhere to be found. Butternut however was and although not as whimsical sounding, fantastic tasting just the same. 

    The final recipe is "Squirrel and Acorn Ravioli with Roasted Butternut Cream". I was quite pleased with the end result. The pasta was not tough, just firm from the hardness of the acorn flour and similar I think to a hard winter wheat flour and certainly not a problem for me.  Of course this would work just fine with shredded, cooked chicken(preferably dark meat), another mushroom of your choice, purchased ricotta and plain egg pasta either homemade or sheets from the market. Still fun, just not as much...hee hee.     

Squirrel and Acorn Ravioli with Roasted Butternut Squash Cream

Filling:

1 Cup cooked & shredded squirrel meat(chicken or pork would work fine)

3/8 Cup Ricotta cheese

1 Tablespoon Parmesan cheese-grated

1/4 Cup cooked Chicken of the Woods mushrooms(Cremini or white would be fine)

1 teaspoon Porcini powder Salt & pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in bowl and set aside

Roasted Butternut Squash Cream:

1 Butternut squash.

2 Tablespoons Extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. black pepper, 1 tsp. garlic powder & 1 tsp. smoked paprika

1Cup Chicken stock or bullion mixed with water

1/2 Cup Heavy cream

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Salt & pepper to taste

Peel, seed & cube squash. Toss in a bowl with oil and seasonings. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet and bake in 400 degree oven for 35-40 minutes.

Pasta dough:

1-1/2 cups All purpose flour

1/2 cup Acorn flour

2 whole eggs and 3 yolks

1/2 Tablespoon Extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

Place flour in mound on counter or in bowl, make well in center. Into the well add eggs, oil & salt. mix with fingers or fork in circular motion until all flour is incorporated into wet ingredients. Work into a nice smooth, homogenized dough ball. Flatten slightly into a disk, wrap in plastic & rest for at least 30 minutes in fridge. Dough can be rolled by hand on a lightly floured surface or in pasta machine. It needs to be rolled as thin as you can get it without tearing apart . I use an Atlas machine and roll it to setting "5" as it started to tear at "6".

Assembly:

If rolling out by hand you'll have to get it to at least 1/16” or less or pasta will be too tough. On floured surface, roll half of dough, then spoon or scoop about 2-3 tablespoons on dough about 3” apart, this size batch gets me about 12 raviolis. Brush dough all around filling. Roll remaining pasta into the same size & shape, Lay on top of filling and bottom sheet . Using cupped hands, carefully press around each filling ball to make sure there is a good seal, then using a crimped pasta cutter, pizza wheel or knife to cut out raviolis into whatever shape desired. If not cooking now, place on parchment lined tray, cover with plastic & store in fridge for up to 1-2 days, freeze for longer than that. Cook in salted, boiling water for 3-5 minutes depending on how thick dough was rolled and the size of raviolis. Will take a few minutes more if frozen. Serve with heated butternut cream. I like to garnish mine with grated Parmesan, chopped chives or parsley and a drizzle of truffle oil if I have any on hand. Enjoy! 

Printable Recipe