Fiesta Ravioli — Stuffed With Something Like Joy

Mid-July. The shishito peppers are producing on the balcony and Miya and I are eating them every evening, the blistered-pepper ritual, the Russian roulette of hot ones among mild ones. She bit into a hot one this week and her eyes went wide and she drank water and fanned her mouth and said, "THAT one was angry," and the description was so perfect — an angry pepper, a pepper with an emotion, a pepper that chose violence — that I laughed until I cried and wrote it on a napkin and pinned it above the stove next to all the other phrases that live on my kitchen wall: "Scared means it matters." "Obaachan soup but Mama style." "Thank you for the soup mama." And now: "That one was angry." The manifesto grows.

I made takoyaki — the octopus balls, the Osaka street food that Fumiko did not make (she was not from Osaka, she was from Nagano via Sacramento, and Osaka food was "showboating," according to Fumiko, which is the kind of culinary regionalism that exists in every food culture and that Fumiko delivered with the authority of a woman who had opinions about everything and shared them with the precision of a surgeon). But I make takoyaki because the international cooking project extends to intra-Japanese cooking, and Osaka is a different country from Nagano, and the takoyaki pan that I bought on the internet produces imperfect spheres that Miya loves.

The takoyaki were round-ish. The octopus was inside-ish. The sauce was on top-ish. The ish-ness was the charm. The ish-ness was the cooking of a woman who is not from Osaka and does not have the decades of takoyaki practice that Osaka grandmothers have and is making it anyway because the making is the practice and the practice extends into new territory, always, because the territory is the world and the world is full of food I have not yet cooked and the not-yet is an invitation, not a failure.

The takoyaki were round-ish, and the shishito pepper was angry, and the evening had all this heat in it — literal and emotional — and what I wanted to make next was something that honored that same spirit: food that is stuffed with something good, a little bold, a little outside its tidy category. Fiesta ravioli is not Japanese, obviously, but it is exactly the kind of dish that exists in the not-yet space: pasta that borrowed from somewhere else, sauce that brings the fire the shishito threatened. The ish-ness is the whole point.

Fiesta Ravioli

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 5

Ingredients

• 1 package (20 oz) refrigerated cheese or beef ravioli
• 1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can (10 oz) diced tomatoes with green chiles, undrained
• 1 cup prepared salsa (medium heat recommended)
• 1 teaspoon taco seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 1/2 cups shredded Mexican blend cheese, divided
• 1/2 cup sour cream, for serving
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• 1 lime, cut into wedges

Instructions

1. Preheat. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking dish and set aside.
2. Parboil the ravioli. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook ravioli for 2 minutes less than package directions — they will finish cooking in the oven. Drain and set aside.
3. Make the sauce. In a large bowl, stir together the black beans, diced tomatoes with chiles, salsa, taco seasoning, and cumin until combined.
4. Layer. Spread half the sauce mixture across the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Arrange the par-cooked ravioli in a single layer on top. Pour remaining sauce over the ravioli. Sprinkle 1 cup of the shredded cheese evenly over everything.
5. Bake. Bake uncovered for 20—25 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling at the edges and the cheese is melted and beginning to brown. In the last 3 minutes, add the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese and return to the oven.
6. Garnish and serve. Remove from oven and let rest for 5 minutes. Top with cilantro and green onions. Serve with sour cream and lime wedges alongside.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 415 | Protein: 19g | Fat: 15g | Carbs: 50g | Fiber: 6g | Sodium: 875mg