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k3v0.recipe: ravioli

Making fresh pasta is fun. It was cold outside so I wanted to be stuck in the kitchen for a little while but it was totally worth it. In this case I ended up making three different fillings: veal, beef, and a combination of the two. I ended up only making and cooking the beef so I froze the rest of the dough and the 2 bags of filling. I know some day those will come in handy.

Ingredients:

Pasta -

• 3 cups semolina flour
• 5 eggs (4 for dough, 1 for sealing the ravioli)
• 1/2 cup of water
• extra flour if needed
• 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil

Filling -

• 2 lbs. ground veal
• 2 lbs. ground beef
• bread crumbs
• 3 eggs
• grated parmigiano reggiano cheese
• salt
• pepper
• garlic powder
• basil
• 3 medium sized onions
• 3 bunches green onions
• olive oil

Tools:

• pasta machine
  

  pasta machine

• ravioli wheel
  

  ravioli wheel

I made the dough first since it needs to sit for a while so the wheat can get hydrated. I first mixed the eggs, oil and water and slowly poured it into the flour. My dough started out a little sticky and needed more flour. Once it got a nice smooth consistency after kneading for a while I put some flour on the bottom of a bowl, then put the dough in and covered the bowl with plastic wrap.

After the dough was resting I began browning the meat in some olive oil. I only added a little salt at this point since the whole filling will need to be seasoned later. Once all the meat was browned I let it cool for a while so it wouldn’t cook the egg. After that I sauteed the onions and garlic and added those to the meat. Then I added some salt, pepper, garlic powder, basil, egg and cheese to mixture. I then added a tiny bit of breadcrumbs to soak some of the moisture in the mix.

Once the mixture was all set it was time to roll out the dough in the pasta machine. After resting the dough should be nice and elastic and impress nicely if you push on it with your finger. I only needed the roller section, not the fettucini attachment so I removed that. Each time i put the dough through the rollers i patted it in some loose flour to keep it nice and pliable. Once it was rolled out I tried to make 2 even lengths and I brushed some egg on one side.

Once the dough is rolled out I portioned out small filling balls for each ravioli. I then placed the egged length of dough on top and made sure it was well aligned to the bottom length to ensure even raviolis. I then used the flat blade on the ravioli wheel to section off each individual ravioli. I then pressed down on the top of the dough to flatten out the filling and remove the air. Next I pressed on the edges around the ravioli to seal the whole thing. For the final seal I ran the edging wheel on each side to acheive the nice ravioli look. When the ravioli is well formed I patted it in flour and then put it on a drying rack so it wouldn’t stick to the others.

I only boiled them a couple at a time so they had space to move and the water didn’t cool down too much. Fresh pasta cooks much quicker so they only took around a minute each. I was being lazy so only canned sauce and some fresh grated cheese was used, but it was certainly delicious.