I’ve been meaning to make ravioli ever since I got my pasta press. I finally got around to it last night and I was pleased with the results.
I’ve been going through my freezer and trying to use anything that’s getting old. I don’t have a lot of rules when it comes to cooking, but one of them is throw out anything that might be older than the cats. I remember during my freshman year of college, I pulled a jar of mayonnaise out of the fridge and it had completely separated back into egg and oil. Since then, I’ve never let anything lurk in the fridge for too long.
I made lasagna a couple of weeks ago. As usual, I had extra ground beef, ricotta, mozzarella, and sauce left over. I always mix it together and freeze the medley in a ziplock bag. That way, when I don’t really feel like cooking, I can just toss it with some ziti, add some jarred sauce, and I have an instant baked pasta. This time, I decided to use the mixture as filling for my ravioli.
The filling mixture can probably be replicated with one small container of ricotta cheese, a half cup of grated parmesan, a heaping tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley, a cup of shredded mozzarella, a cup of ground beef, a half cup of red sauce, and one egg yolk. As always, season to taste with salt and pepper.
The pasta dough is made with three eggs and between 2-2½ cups flour (instructions here). I rolled it very thin so that the dough wouldn’t be chewy. Next, I snipped off a corner of the ziplock so I could extrude the stuffing like frosting out of a pastry bag.
If I wanted to make large ravioli, I would have rolled out two sheets of dough and placed one on top of the other. But I like small ravioli, so I just folded the dough over like and long empanada and pressed out the air between the stuffing with my fingers. Next, I cut the dough into individual ravioli and sealed the edges with the back of a fork.
The stuffing looks small, but it spreads out inside the cavity during the cooking process. I let them dry on a well-floured baking sheet for a few hours and then boiled them in a large pot of salted water. I layered them in a pan with leftover sauce so they wouldn’t stick together.
These came out good. Next time, I’ll make this with another person. It would go a lot faster with one person rolling dough and the other person stuffing and cutting the ravioli. There are so many stuffing and sauce combinations. I can’t decide what to try next.
