Astute readers have noticed that my main blog page contains a picture of ravioli. "Are those yours?" they ask. Not only are they mine, but I shall now grace you with the recipe, including a new filling I created last night.
Background
Some of my earliest and fondest memories include cooking and baking with my family. Grandma's house, where I spent a lot of time as a child, almost always smelled of garlicky, sausagy red sauce. And though I often watched and helped cook, somehow I only recently became interested in making ravioli from scratch (having "mastered" the sauce, plain ol' pasta and whole wheat pasta). Upon receiving Grandma's "recipe" - something Dad typed up on the computer from Grandma's old notes - I discovered the fillings had cow's milk products in them, a blow to my lactose intolerant husband. It would have been easy enough just to omit cheese and leave the filling mostly meat, but it was autumn and the spirit of the season hit me. Plus, I had a can of pureed pumpkin sitting around. When summer rolled around and spinach was once again in season, the alternative filling at the end of this post was born.
Ingredients for Dough
1 C. scant all purpose flour
1 egg
water
Ingredients for Pumpkin Goat Cheese Filling
1 C. pureed pumpkin
(NOT pumpkin pie filling - they usually stock them next to each other, so watch out!)
1 oz. crumbled goat cheese
(herbed if you like, but note the herbs then play with your end flavor)
1 t. dried rubbed sage
(OR 1 t. another herb you like: you could easily go the sweeter route and add cinnamon or nutmeg... or allspice)
1/4 t. garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
Directions
For the filling, place pureed pumpkin and goat cheese in the top of a double boiler (or a metal bowl that can sit on top of a sauce pan). While over the heat, use a hand mixer to incorporate these two ingredients together. You will see the color of the pumpkin puree mellow as the cheese melts in.
Remove from heat and add spices to taste. PLEASE always taste as you go along. You know what you like. If you like a bit more of a kick to your food, you can use a stronger pepper than ground black pepper. Set aside.
For the pasta dough, on a clean, flat surface, make a little mountain out of the flour. Starting in the middle, top of the mountain, swirl your finger around wider and wider, so that there is now a hole in the center of your mountain. Crack one egg into that hole. With a fork, beat the egg inside the flour mountain.
As you beat, bring more and more flour from the mountain edges into the mixture. When the flour and egg begin to form a sticky dough that is difficult to manipulate with a fork, switch to kneading with your hands, being sure to incorporate all the flour.
The dough will be dry, so add small amounts of water at a time. I'm talking several drops, not even a teaspoon - the dough can get too watery quite quickly. If your dough becomes too watery, fear not, just add a little more flour. Work the dough until a solid, smooth consistency is reached. Form dough into a ball and set in a bowl to rest, brushing the top with olive oil and covering with a cloth. Let dough rest at least 15 minutes to relax the gluten. With this recipe, you may have filling left over, so feel free to double the dough recipe. The single recipe should make about 15-20 ravioli.
To assemble the ravioli, flour a large, flat, clean surface and roll dough. Dough should be quite thin, so I find using the roller function on a pasta machine to be quite helpful (you CAN do this by hand with a LONG rolling pin - it will take time). Follow the instructions on your pasta machine, but generally, you want to start on thicker settings and gradually switch to thinner and thinner settings. You want a fairly thin dough, but not so thin that your filling will break through. You'll likely need to work in batches; I usually cut the dough ball in half. When desired thickness is reached, use a knife to cut ravioli dough into strips, about 2"x5-6".
Place a small amount - just under a teaspoon - of filling on one half of the strip. You want to be able to fold the other half on top of it, so leave room. Also, be sure to leave enough room around the edges of your pasta to seal it. Fold the fillingless half of the pasta over onto the filling half and press edges closed with your fingers, being careful not to let filling seep out.
You can further seal the pasta using an everyday fork. Using the tines, go around the three non-folded edges, pressing the tines firmly into the dough - but not hard enough to break through into the filling. You can also trim the outside edges with a knife to make them more uniform - DON'T toss that extra dough, though - reroll it :)
Place finished ravioli on a lightly floured dish towel or piece of wax paper atop a baking sheet. Do not stack - they will stick together.
If you are freezing your ravioli, sprinkle the tops of the ravioli with flour and place baking sheet(s) directly into freezer. After a few hours, ravioli can be gathered from the sheets and placed into freezer bags for more compact storage.
To cook your ravioli, shake off any excess flour and place in boiling, salted water on the stove top. Note: homemade, fresh pasta does not take as long to cook as store-bought, dried pasta. For fresh ravioli, often 5-7 minutes will do the trick. Frozen ravioli will take a few more minutes. The telltale sign that it is done is that the ravioli will float on top of the water.
Spinach and Goat Cheese Filling
1 bunch/bag of spinach (washed, dried, stems removed and roughly chopped)
1/2 large onion, finely chopped
1 t. garlic, minced
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 oz. crumbled goat cheese
1/2 egg
Over medium heat, saute onion in olive oil until almost translucent. Add garlic and saute a couple minutes more, being sure to avoid burning the garlic. Add spinach and toss, cooking until the greens are wilted. Remove from heat and allow mixture to cool completely. Add in salt, pepper, goat cheese and egg and mix well (I use my hands). Your filling is now ready to be made into ravioli. Again, you may have some filling left over - you can always make one more batch of dough.
