Pasta is my Favorite Food Group

Project: Home-made ravioli, using my new ravioli mold from Williams-Sonoma.

Materials: Ricotta cheese, bacon, porcini mushrooms, shallots and a host of other tasty ingredients for the filling.

The ingredients:

Flour + Eggs + Salt = Pasta Dough!

My delightful ravioli mold, complete with a mini rolling pin:

It's like an ice cube tray, but for ravioli:

So many ravioli, so little time!

Served with a butter and thyme sauce. Yum!

Recipes (from a cooking class I took at EATZ)

PASTA DOUGH 

(makes about 12 ounces)

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

3 large eggs, room temperature

2 ounces water

pinch of coarse salt

Put the all-purpose flour in the center of a large bowl and form a well in the middle. In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs and salt with a fork until smooth, then pour into the well. Begin to work the flour into the eggs with the fork. Then use your hands to work the rest of the flour into the mixture, a bit at a time, just to form a sticky dough. Note: If dough is too dry, mix in enough water to make dough easy to handle. If dough is too sticky, gradually add flour when kneading. Gather dough into a ball. Knead on lightly floured surface 5-10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Cover with plastic wrap or aluminum foil.  Let stand at room temperature for at least 30 minutes and up to 1 ½ hours. Divide dough into 6 equal parts.  

With a rolling pin, roll 1/6 of dough at a time into rectangle, 1/16 to 1/8 inch thick, on lightly floured surface (keep remaining dough covered). Loosely fold rectangle lengthwise into thirds. Cut crosswise into 2 strips for lasagna, 1/4 inch strips for fettucine and 1/8 inch strips for linguine. Unfold and gently shake out strips.

RAVIOLI FILLING

(for the above pasta recipe, I would double this filling recipe. At least for the size ravioli I made, I ran out of filling half way through)

2 tablespoons diced pancetta

½ cup mushrooms, finely chopped

1 shallot, minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped

3 tablespoons ricotta cheese

coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

egg wash, for assembling ravioli

In sauté pan heat to med and add pancetta, brown and once fat has rendered remove pancetta to a bowl.  Add shallots to the pan, once they caramelized add garlic and mushrooms and thyme. Cook until soft. Remove to the bowl with pancetta and add the ricotta cheese, taste and season with salt & pepper then set aside.

For those of you who don't have a handy dandy ravioli mold,

ASSEMBLING THE RAVIOLI

Roll out pasta sheet and add about a teaspoon of mixture to sheet every 3 inches, wet around edge of filling.  Cover with a second roll.  Seal each ravioli and cut into your desired shape. Boil in salted water.

Note: The ravioli can be made ahead of time but must be placed in the freezer and then boiled from the frozen state.

THYME BROWN BUTTER SAUCE

(Serves 2)

½ stick of butter

2 sprigs of thyme, leaves removed

Juice of ½ a lemon

Salt & pepper to taste

Grated parmesan cheese, to garnish

In sauce pan add butter over med heat.  Get to brown nutty stage and add thyme and lemon juice then salt and pepper. Toss in the ravioli to coat, serve with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

I actually wasn't a huge fan of the lemony sauce, so next time I might just do brown butter and thyme, without the lemon juice.

Happy pasta making!