I have a lot of friends that are vegetarian or vegan, and I love having people over for dinner parties. The problem is that these two things don’t really go together and my vegetable loving friends get left off the invite list if barbeque Greek lamb is on the menu. So we held a vegan dinner party that had some vegos plus some non-vegos.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, I wanted to put together a menu that didn’t make the non-vegos notice anything was missing. I believe I succeeded as the non-vegos, after finishing second helpings of the main, only then clued on to the lack of meat (and dairy and eggs).

In the process K and LAB invented a dish that is now one of our all-time favourites. It is inspired by ravioli with a sage-butter sauce, but this has no eggs and no butter, and is really pretty simple to make.

Note: Excuse the photos (and the hideous blue benchtop), next time I make this I’ll take better photos so it looks as good as it tastes.

Pumpkin Raviolli with Hazelnut Sage Sauce
Serves 2, 20 minutes preparation plus 10 cooking

1 packet of Gow Gee Dumpling Wrappers (these are a vegan pasta option!)
500 gms of pumpkin (squash), skinned and in large cubes
1 bunch of sage
4-6 tbs of lemon infused olive oil (plain olive oil will do too)
Good quality sea salt (I use Maldon)
¾ cup of hazelnuts, smashed a little

Microwave your pumpkin until soft enough to mash. Mash the pumpkin until it looks like baby-food. Thinly slice around 15 sage leaves, stir these and a pinch of salt into the pumpkin mash. This is your ravioli filling.

Get a large pot of water boiling on the stove. This dish all comes together in about 5 minutes so you need to be ready.

Prepare your sauce ingredients: smash the hazelnuts so some bits are large chunks and some are smaller. Have about 20 sage leaves on hand, 1 teaspoon of salt and the olive oil.

Make your ravioli. Put a teaspoon of pumpkin mix slightly off-centre on a dumpling wrapper, then use a pastry brush to lightly wet the edge of the dumpling wrapper. Close the dumpling wrapper carefully around the filling trying to avoid getting air-bubbles, press firmly all along the closed edge to seal. Place each ravioli on a tray (either a non-stick tray or lined with baking paper) making sure they don’t touch as they will stick together.

Once your ravioli are all prepared but as yet uncooked, make your sauce. Toast the hazelnuts in a frypan until lightly toasted, then add the oil.

At this point, put all your ravioli gently into the boiling water. It helps to have a second set of hands in the kitchen to gently stir the ravioli while they cook to stop them sticking to each other and the pot. The ravioli only take 2-3 minutes to cook, they start to float when they’re ready.

While the ravioli are cooking, put the sage leaves and salt into the sauce. The sage leaves should get slightly crisp.

Scoop the ravioli into bowls with a slotted spoon then put some sauce on top.