Golden-Fried Pumpkin Purses

Here is a seasonal recipe from Alain Ducasse in his Flavors of France cookbook. It is essentially a fried ravioli stuffed with pumpkin, leeks, rice and Parmesan cheese, that apparently comes from Monaco where the locals call them "Uncle Johns", or "barbajuans".

The first step is to roast a pumpkin in the oven at 400 degrees for about an hour and a half. Quarter your pumpkin, place the pieces skin-side-down on a baking sheet, and drizzle with olive oil.

Meanwhile, make the pasta:

Mix together:

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 large egg

1/2 cup ice-cold water

Knead the dough for a minute, form into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Next, begin to make the filling:

Boil 1/2 cup Arborio rice for 10 minutes with 1 1/4 teaspoons fine sea salt in 1 1/2 cups water.

Drain the rice and set aside.

Then mince the white and tender green parts of 4 slim leeks, and saute them in a skillet with 1 tablespoon of olive oil for about 4 minutes.

Once the pumpkin has cooked, remove the skin and mash it til smooth in a large bowl.

Mix in:

the cooked rice

the sauteed leeks

2 large eggs

3/4 cup (6 oz) Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

(I forgot to take a photo of the mixture all together, but here is the pumpkin; you'll see the filling below as it is assembled with the pasta.)

Roll the pasta dough out into long sheets.

Spoon 20 walnut-sized scoops of filling along the bottom half of each pasta sheet, then fold the top half over to cover the mounds.

Press the edges together around each mound, then cut into ravioli shapes:

Heat 6 cups of peanut oil to 325-350 degrees F.

Fry the ravioli, about 6 at a time, until golden.

Transfer to paper towels to drain, and salt immediately with a high quality sea salt.

Serve hot as an appetizer.