Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Five Cheese Ravioli


Making ravioli from scratch is something I've been meaning to do ever since I first started making my own pasta dough. It's not that it's really all that hard, but it's just one of those things I've never gotten around to. Well, Liv finally put her foot down this weekend and demanded homemade ravioli on Saturday night. The recipe was a bit of a mishmash from a few different sources as well as some improvisation, but it ended up working well. According to Olivia, "This was the best thing you've ever cooked for me." I guess I did good.


Five Cheese Ravioli

Ingredients:

1lb fresh pasta dough. You can get my recipe here.
2 eggs, lightly beaten plus a tbsp of water for egg wash

For Filling:

12 oz ricotta
1/2 lb fresh mozzarella
1/3 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
1/3 cup grated pecorino romano
1/3 cup grated provologne
3 eggs
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil
1 tbsp chopped chives
1 tbsp chopped fresh Italian parsley
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste


Directions:







Make the pasta dough.



Cut and roll into sheets. Do your best to make the sheets about the same size and shape, or at least symmetrical so you can cut each in half and have a good match for placing one on top of another.










For the filling, combine the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix together using a fork until combined.




To make the ravioli, place 1 tbsp dollops of the filling on a sheet of pasta, 1-2 inches apart. Brush the egg wash onto a separate sheet and then lay it over the sheet with the dollops of filling.



Gently seal the pasta around the filling, then cut with a knife or ravioli cutter. I used a knife and then the prongs of a fork to seal around the edges.


Place the ravioli on a paper towel (they'll stick to a plate, as I found out). You can stack the ravioli, but make sure to have a paper towel between each layer. Continue until you've used up all of the pasta or the filling.


Have your sauce pretty much ready to go, as well as everything else you're going to be eating, before you think about cooking the ravioli. Like most fresh pasta, these cook extremely quickly–1-2 minutes–so you want to make sure this is the last thing you do before eating. Place as many ravioli as you can into a pot of boiling, salted water. Remove with a slotted spoon after about 2 minutes–they'll hopefully be floating after they're cooked.

I recommend not trying to cook all of the ravioli at once, but rather do them in batches so that you're not putting one ones in while the first ones are done. This is up to you though, but managing these properly can be a little tricky.


Once they're done, plate them and add whatever sauce you like.


It looks pretty simple, but with making the pasta it ends up being a pretty significant amount of work. Turned out amazing, though, and was instantly one of my favorite dishes ever. We used an amazing meat sauce that Olivia's mom made last weekend, and the combination made each ravioli taste like a little lasagna.



To go along with the pasta, we had a small appetizer of some incredible Moroccan bread we picked up at the Fort Greene Farmer's Market. After warming the bread up in the oven, we topped it with a portobello mushroom and roasted pepper salad.






We also picked up these beautiful heirloom tomatoes at the market and made a quick caprese salad using basil from the garden, fresh mozzarella, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. As you can see, the tomatoes were so massive that we made far too much.


While it was a lot of work, this turned out to be one of my favorite recipes ever. I've got a few more ideas for ravioli as we get into the fall, so stay tuned.

1 comment:

Ravioli Eater said...

Delicious!