Easy Duck Ravioli with Miso Cream Sauce

Recipe and photos by Lily Morello

Delicate pillows of pasta stuffed with a decadent mixture of rich duck confit, creamy goat cheese, and caramelized shallots, bathing in a pool of creamy marsala sauce.

Ingredients for the Ravioli

1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 shallot, finely diced
1 pinch kosher salt
1 package (7 oz) Rillettes de Canard, at room temp
3 oz goat cheese, at room temp
50–60 Hong Kong style dumpling wrappers
1 egg (for eggwash)
2 tbsp water (for eggwash)
semolina or all purpose flour (for dusting)

Ingredients for the Sauce

4 tsp white miso, at room temp
2 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temp
2 1/2 tbsp dry marsala wine
3/8 cup heavy cream

Ingredients for Plating (Optional)

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1–2 sprigs tarragon, leaves only
1 tsp roasted pistachios, roughly chopped
cracked black pepper, to taste
shaved or grated parmesan, to taste

Procedure

Make the filling: On medium-low heat, melt butter in a small skillet. Add shallots and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, reducing the heat if the edges are browning much more quickly than the rest. Transfer to a bowl and add duck rillettes and goat cheese. Use a spatula to fold together until evenly combined.

Assemble the ravioli: In a small bowl, whisk the eggwash ingredients together. Brush eggwash all around the outer area of 1 dumpling wrapper. Scoop 1 heaped teaspoon of filling into the center of the dumpling wrapper. Place another dumpling wrapper on top and seal the two wrappers together, starting from immediately around the mound of filling and working outwards, to ensure there are no air bubbles. Use a round cutter, kitchen shears, or a knife to trim off the excess wrapper edges that do not align. Place on a tray or plate dusted with flour.

Repeat with the remaining filling. Freeze ravioli for at least 30 minutes before boiling.

Cook the ravioli: Bring a large pot of water to a boil. While waiting, prepare the sauce and tarragon (if using) according to the instructions below.

Add ravioli directly from the freezer. Cook until the wrappers are tender, about 2–3 minutes. Immediately add to the sauce and plate for serving.

Make the sauce: Select a wide skillet or saute pan that is large enough to hold the ravioli. Add miso and butter while the heat is off. Use a spatula to fold miso and butter together until well-combined. Heat on low until the mixture looks melted and starts to bubble. Turn the heat up to medium-low. Whisk in the marsala wine. Continue to heat, whisking constantly, until small bubbles are visible. Turn heat back down to low and whisk in the cream. Keep whisking gently until the mixture is steaming and just starting to bubble.

Prepare the tarragon (optional): In a small skillet, heat olive oil on medium. Add tarragon leaves and allow them to crisp in the oil, then remove immediately and place on a paper towel lined plate to drain the excess oil. Remove skillet from heat and set aside.

Plate the dish: Spoon ravioli and sauce into shallow bowls. If using, drizzle the tarragon-infused oil over the top and then add the fried tarragon leaves. Top each bowl with pistachios, pepper, and parmesan as desired. The ravioli may stick together as the dish cools, so be sure to enjoy it while it is fresh and piping hot!

Notes from the Author:

This recipe is for delicate pillows of pasta stuffed with a decadent mixture of rich duck confit, creamy goat cheese, and caramelized shallots, bathing in a pool of creamy marsala sauce. This might sound, at first, like something that you might be more likely to find in a nice restaurant than your own home kitchen. But making this elegant and extremely delicious dish is actually not as laborious as it looks. With the help of a few big-impact ingredients like Three Little Pigs Rillettes de Canard and white miso, and the super easy hack of using dumplings wrappers in place of rolling out pasta sheets, you’ll be able to tuck in to these elegant bites in the comfort and coziness of your own dining room.

Since we’re already embracing Asian ingredients for our clever “pasta” shortcut, I decided to lean into that fusion vibe and pair the ravioli with a decadent miso cream sauce. These ravioli are so flavorful on their own though that if you wanted to simplify things even further, you could certainly enjoy these savory pillows with a simple brown butter sauce, or even just a drizzle of the best extra virgin olive oil in your pantry. I’m definitely biased towards the sauce though, as it is a bit inspired by a pasta dish I get every year for my birthday at a fancy Italian restaurant in my city. Having these duck ravioli in that creamy sauce really transformed a random weeknight dinner into something that felt like a special occasion.

This dish is all about using a few great ingredients in smart ways.

Here are the key ingredients you’ll need to make duck ravioli with miso cream sauce:

Duck rillettes: Three Little Pigs Rillettes de Canard is a gourmet duck spread where the duck is slow cooked in a confit style preparation until the meat is so tender and so perfect for using as a ravioli filling. It’s the cozy flavor of something bubbling away all day in the kitchen but all you had to do was pop open a convenient little container.
Goat cheese: To me, ravioli filling has gotta be cheesy too. To bring a little bit of tang to the rich duck confit filling, I incorporated the soft white goat cheese that can typically be found in logs.
Hong Kong style dumpling wrappers: This is the hack for making “homemade” ravioli without having to go through the trouble of making your own pasta! They are already nice and thin and cut into little pieces that are perfect to serve as each side of a raviolo. As a Chinese-American person it is my duty to encourage you to explore your local Asian supermarket and look specifically for the Hong Kong style dumpling wrappers; these are super thin and made with egg, so they are the best type of dumpling wrapper for emulating homemade pasta. However, I am noticing that even mainstream grocery stores near me are starting to carry nice thin wonton wrappers! These would be fine as a substitute; just try to avoid the thicker wrappers that are labeled for potstickers.
White miso: This is what the complex umami for the sauce comes from. It is another ingredient that I am seeing starting to appear at more Western-centric grocery stores and not just the Asian markets; you can also order it online. White miso has a shorter fermentation time so it is more mellow and is sweeter than other types of miso.
Dry marsala wine: Even though it’s the dry variety, this ingredient brings a subtle sweetness and an additional depth of flavor to the sauce. For me, it is what makes the sauce taste like something from a nice restaurant. Try to find dry marsala wine that is meant to be used as an aperitif and not one that is labeled for cooking, as those can be overly sweet or salty.

Here is a walkthrough for how use dumpling wrappers to make ravioli:

Make an eggwash that will seal the two dumpling wrappers together and act as “glue” so they won’t fall apart when boiled. Brush that eggwash all over one of the dumpling wrappers, leaving only the center plain for the filling. (You can also choose to brush eggwash on the whole wrapper).

Scoop a heaped teaspoon of the filling into the center.

Place another dumpling wrapper on top, pressing gently directly around the mound of filling to seal it in. Then continue to press outward, making sure there are no air bubbles and the two wrappers are completely sealed together. Note that the top wrapper won’t be completely flat since it’s wrapping around the mound of filling.

To neaten things up and really make them look like ravioli made by a pro, use a cookie cutter or biscuit cutter to cut out a clean circle. You could also just use a paring knife or kitchen shears to trim off the excess parts of the dumpling wrappers that don’t quite align.

Dust a little bit of flour (I used semolina flour but all purpose will do too) onto the plate or tray that you are using to store assembled ravioli; this is to prevent them from sticking until you’re ready to cook them. Since the filling is already fully cooked, all you’re doing when you boil the dumplings is heating the filling through and cooking the very-thin wrappers, so be sure to watch them carefully and enjoy them immediately!