Home Made Ravioli

Today for lunch, I made homemade ravioli served with marinara sauce.  It was SO DELICIOUS!!  Even the kids were begging for more.  They were a bit of work.  However, it worked out much cheaper than the freezer burned ones I can get at our local store.  Plus, I know exactly what went into them!  Here is the recipe for my homemade pasta and a quick tutorial for making raviolis.

2 cup               all purpose flour (plus some to flour the board)

½ tsp                salt

2                      beaten eggs

1/3 cup            water

1 tsp                oil

In a large mixing bowl stir together flour and salt.  Combine eggs, water and oil.  Form a well into the flour mixture and pour the egg mixture into it.

Mix well.

Turn the dough out onto a floured board. 

Knead the dough for 8 minutes.  It will become smooth and elastic.

Dough can be refrigerated for up to three days.

Roll dough out to desired thickness and shape.

Cook until no longer doughy in the middle.  Or, dry and store in an air tight container.

Now for the photo tutorial….

Flour mixture with the well in the middle, pour the egg mixture right in the middle.

I just mixed the whole thing with my hands.  Once it forms a nice ball, turn it out onto the floured surface.  Wash your hands and get ready for your arm exercise for the day!!

Knead for 8 minutes.  Whew!

Let the dough rest for a bit while you make your filling.  I used homemade ricotta, mozzarella, fresh shredded parmesan, and fresh shredded Romano.

Now it’s time to roll out that dough.  Cut the dough ball into quarters.  I used my trusty Atlas pasta roller.  If you don’t have one of these, a rolling pin will work just fine.  You want the dough fairly thin, but not to the point it will rip when you work with it.  I went to a level 5 on my pasta roller.

Next put a spoonful of filling spaced evenly on your pasta dough.  Wet the edges and fold over or put the top layer of dough on.  We used a fork to press the edges closed.  Be careful not to puncture the pocket with the filling in it.  If you do, your filling will come out in the boiling water. 

Lesson learned….don’t stack the ravioli.  I had to carefully pry all the ravioli apart after I told my daughter she could stack them.  They stuck to each other pretty well.

When you are ready to cook, get a nice big pot of water boiling on the stovetop.  I put salt and a little butter in my water.  It helps to prevent it from boiling over, and prevents the pasta from sticking to each other.

Once the water is at a full rolling boil, gently drop the ravioli into the water one at a time.  I only cooked five or six at a time to keep them from sticking.  You know they are done when they have been floating at the top of the water for a minute or two.  I think I cooked mine for maybe 5 minutes.

Remove the ravioli with a slotted spoon.  Add in the next batch while you dish up the done ones.  I topped them with marinara and more shredded parmesean cheese.

One batch of dough made 19 rather large ravioli.  I’m sure we could have been much more efficient in our cutting/shaping of the ravioli and gotten a few more.  I ate three personally, and that was enough for me to not be hungry.  I probably could have eaten one more.