We made homemade, handmade fresh ravioli last night (the things we do to entertain ourselves when the tv dish doesn't work since they are redoing the roof). We used a mold that you lay one piece of dough out on, indent, fill the indentations, and the cover with another bit of dough. You then roll a rolling pin over the mold, and it makes ravioli, 12 at a time.We learned a few things about making ravioli from fresh egg pasta. We are passing these lessons on to you.
1. The egg in the middle of the flour: The instructions are to create a well with the four and add your eggs into the well. You take a fork and beat the eggs, incorporating the flour on the sides until all the flour combines with the eggs. Yeah, that doesn't work very well. 4 eggs do not fit into the mini well that 2 1/2 cups of flour make and instead you have a volcano of yolks and whites cascading down the side of the flour, onto your mat. It becomes very messy very quickly.
2. When rolling out the dough to be translucent thin, it helps if the dough is held by someone so it actually stretches and doesn't move with the rolling pin, and 2b. it is imperative that the table be completely clean of any sticky bits, as that will tear the dough, which will lead to other problems.
3. Keep the filling in the indentation; don't get the filling on the outside of the indentation, as the pasta will not seal together.
4. It is very important to cook the ingredients first. We used spinach, tomatoes, cheese, and garlic. No meat, so I didn't think that we needed to pre-cook them. But the pasta was really wet when cooked because the water coming out of the spinach.
On our 4th dozen, we finally had mastered the ravioli mold and set about cooking and consuming. They were delicious (though a bit moist) and we have plenty of leftovers that we can freeze and have anytime!
4 comments:
Very useful advice. I'll make it in a bowl if I ever do.
Spinach is a hard filling because of the water issue. I made filo triangles once and they completely fell apart because of the water in my spinach filling.
But what about something like sausage? I would think you'd need to pre-cook it, but mostly because fresh pasta cooks in like 4 minutes, which is not enough time to cook sausage properly.
And did you egg-wash the edges, or do they just stick together through brute force? Do tell.
I have read more about it, and yes, you should cook any filling before hand, especially meat. And I brushed the first set with olive oil, and it was harder to stick together. The others, we used brute force and so long as the filling wasn't in the way, the dough stuck together. It was fun and easy! Just a bit time consuming.
I have always wanted to make ravioli, so your efforts empower me. Perhaps next time you might really squeeeeeze the water out of the spinach with linen towels before making the filling. When's dinner? :)
We had it for dinner again tonight and we had to let the raviolis dry another two hours because sitting over night with the fresh moist spinach made the dough super moist and easily torn. Definitely, cooking all ingredients before putting them in the dough is key.
Still we will make them again-- apparently as soon as this batch is gone, as Will is now a fan of homemade pasta and what Will wants, Will gets. ;)
Plus, it's fun!
Post a Comment