Proving that delicious pasta is absolutely possible to make at home.

This week’s recipe is all about Italy.  Delicious ravioli is a comfort food when many of us need a little comfort. What are you supposed to do though if you can’t get out to the store? It’s a really complicated thing to make right? Well actually, no. The only thing that’s complicated about the dough is the need to balance ‘enough’ mixing versus ‘not enough.’ Once you’ve got that, the rest is easy. 

Ingredients

For The Dough: 

1 cup water

¼ tsp kosher salt, plus more for the pasta water

2 ½ cups all purpose flour plus more for dusting 

For The Filling

1 cup whole milk ricotta cheese, drained

¾ cup finely grated mozzarella or mild sheep’s milk cheese

½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

½ tsp dried oregano

1 large egg

½ tsp kosher salt

For The Sauce

3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled

1 25-ounce jar tomato puree

3 springs basil, plus torn leaves for topping

1 4-inch piece Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese rind, plus grated cheese for garnish

¼ tsp kosher salt 

To make the dough: Grab a small saucepan and put in on high heat, bring the water and ¼ teaspoon salt to a simmer.  Place your flour in a medium sized mixing bowl. Pour the hot water over the flour and mix together using a  silicone spatula or a wooden spoon. Continue mixing until it becomes a shaggy dough. Dump the mixture out onto a lightly floured surface and knead the dough for 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic.  Wrap your dough with plastic wrap and let it rest for 10 minutes on the counter. 

While that’s resting, let's make the filling.  In a medium bowl, mix together the ricotta, mozzarella, Parmigiano, oregano, egg and salt. 

To make the sauce: Take a clean pot and heat it over medium heat, add the olive oil and garlic. Cook the garlic for 2 minutes, or until the garlic is lightly browned and aromatic. Pour in the tomato puree, the basil springs, the cheese rind and a bit of salt. Let the sauce simmer for 12 minutes, stirring often. When the sauce has thickened slightly, remove and discard both the basil and the cheese rind.  

Roll your pasta dough out on a lightly floured surface to a ⅛ rectangle 6 inches by 36 inches. Place little mounds of the filling (roughly 2 teaspoons each) of the filling at an inch apart on the long edge of the dough. Fold the dough in half long ways, covering the filling and carefully press around the filling sealing the dough. 

Cutting apart the dough can done in two different ways. You can use a glass or a cookie cutter if you want round ravioli.Or you can cut them apart using a knife if you want square ravioli. Remove any scraps and repeat. You should end up with roughly 30 ravioli at the end of the process. 

Put a large pot of water on high heat and season liberally with salt.  Once it’s boiling, it’s time to start cooking. Add the ravioli in batches and simmer for about 3 minutes, or till they float. At that point you’ll know they’re cooked through. Using either a ladle or a slotted spoon, remove them from the pot. To serve, ladle spoonfuls of sauce to the center of a plate and position the ravioli on top.  Sprinkle with grated Parmigiano and torn basil. 

Notes: 

Let’s start with this “what the heck does ‘alla Caprese’ mean??” In this case it means in the style of Capri, which is an island off the western coast of Italy. The style of Capri is (almost) anything made with tomato, basil, olive oil and mozzarella.  

Now, if you want to make this process even easier you can go into your freezer and grab out an empty ice cube tray. Next, lay the dough over the tray and carefully push the filling into each of the wells. Fold the other half of the dough over the top, as in the original instructions and use the walls between the wells to press together the two layers of the dough. Finally, flip the tray over onto a lightly floured surface and using a sharp knife cut about the cubes. If you want to get really nifty you can even take a fork and press down the edges both to make sure they’re firmly attached and also to make them look nice. 

Additions to the filling- You most definitely can add to the filling, but make sure that if you do that the additions are small in size.

Some good examples for additions might be: mushrooms, ground beef, Italian sausage, crab, prosciutto, chicken, or sweet potatoes. 

Let us know how it goes! We want to hear about your attempts and how they turn out, either here in the comments below or over on our Facebook page. 

Don’t forget, if you want to schedule a check up for your appliances, that is something we do! You can also count on us to help fix them if they’ve been rude enough to break on you. We don’t stop until the job is done right. You can reach us by phone ((214) 599-0055)or by making an appointment on our website.