| By: Javier Losada Radley |
Ingredients
Yield: ~40 ravioli (depending on how many eggs you use)
Prep & Cooking time: 20 minutes
Necessary Tools
Ravioli cutter (looks like a pizza cutter, but it gives ravioli a stamped look along the edges)
Rolling pin
Ravioli pin (looks like a rolling pin, but it has straight sides to create a ravioli mold)
Sauce pan
Boiling pot
Mixing bowls
Blender (optional)
Dough:
Approximately 2 cups of self-rising flour (or, to make self-rising flour: 1 cup all-purpose flour + 1.5 tsp baking powder + 1/4 tsp salt)
2 eggs
**NOTE: assume it’s 1 egg per person and roughly 1 cup of flour per egg** If you want to make enough for 8+ people, you should make separate batches (rather than just one extra-large one) and no more than 3 eggs at a time. Color and texture of the dough will vary depending on the quality of the egg. This dough can be used for other pasta varieties!
Filling:
6oz/one bag spinach (up to 10oz)
1 cup ricotta cheese (make sure to drain)
1 cup parmesan cheese
1/3 cup of ground walnuts (put less if you don’t like the nutty taste)
1 tbsp nutmeg
Ham or other meat is optional
Sauce:
1 onion (chopped)
15 oz standard can of peeled tomatoes
Salt and pepper (per your taste)
1 red pepper (chopped)
2 cloves of garlic (~2-3 teaspoons of minced garlic)
Olive oil (per your taste)
Basil leaves (per your taste)
Some people add sausage or chicken meat
Cooking Instructions
Dough:
In a large mixing bowl, add the flour. Create a little crater in the flour mound, where you can add eggs without having them overflow.
Break the eggs and place them in the crater; then start to whisk them lightly. Once the egg mix looks more uniform, begin gradually stirring in flour from the sides. You want to slowly add the flour and you’ll soon begin to see a dough ball forming. Keep doing this until you have a dough ball roughly the size of a large grapefruit.
Once the dough feels like play doh and pieces are no longer sticking to your hands when you squeeze it, take it out of the bowl and play around with it in your hands. If it’s still a bit sticky, add some flour. Remember that if it’s sticky, then it will stick to the rolling pin and may tear. You will probably have some flour remaining in your bowl and that’s fine.
Once the dough is more solid, you can start slamming it on the counter from roughly a foot above the counter. Slam it several times.
Put the dough in a bowl and cover it with a kitchen cloth. This allows the gluten to relax. Wait 15-20 minutes.
Spread some flour on the clean countertop. Place dough on the counter and place the rolling pin on top of the mound. Roll upwards and check to make sure the dough doesn’t stick to the pin. If so, add more flour. If not, roll downwards. You’ll start to have an oval shape. As if it were a clock, begin turning the dough after each roll. The dough will have its end points at 1pm and 7pm, 2pm and 8pm, 3pm and 9pm, etc. Keep turning as you roll it out. Each time, sprinkle a bit of flour onto the dough as well as the countertop, so it doesn’t stick.
Keep rolling out the dough until it’s uniformly thin (like a piece of paper). To flip the dough without tearing it, you need to roll an edge of the dough onto the rolling pin and then slowly flip it. For my 2-egg mixture, the dough was roughly the length of the rolling pin in height and narrower in width.
(Make sure you take the filling mixture out of the refrigerator 10-15 minutes or so before using it). Envision an imaginary line that divides your flattened dough in two (DO NOT CUT ANYTHING). Spread the filling on the top half of the dough; don’t make the layer too thick or the filling will burst out afterwards.
Once you’re done, grab the edge of the bottom half and pull it over the top half (as if you’re making an empanada/taco); try to align the edges and if there’s extra dough, cut the sides a bit. Don’t throw away any scraps because you can also cook these pieces (it’s the same dough used for tagliatelle!).
Now you have a semicircle in front of you. Line up the ravioli pin with the edge of the flat side of the semicircle. Press down, enough to create the shape of the ravioli, but not too hard – you don’t want to break the dough. Repeat this step, moving across the semicircle, until the entire dough piece has the ravioli shapes in place. You’ll notice that because the dough is a semicircle, there will be excess dough (and filling coming out) around the edges. Don’t throw scraps away! You can still cook those pieces even though they won’t have the same aesthetic.
Prepare a large pan or tray with flour – this will be your flat drying area. With the ravioli shapes in place, take the ravioli cutter and start cutting, following the lines you just pressed into the dough. I suggest cutting horizontal strips (run the cutter straight across and try to keep the lines clean) and then cutting the individual pieces. You may have to manually shape some of the individual pieces and pinch the seams.
Place the ravioli on the drying pan; space them out and do not stack them. Let the ravioli dry for at least 45 min before cooking them.
Once you’re ready to cook the ravioli, prepare the sauce to heat in a separate pan so you can serve it warm once the ravioli are cooked.
Boil water in a large pot and add salt. Do not add olive oil. Using a pasta strainer spoon or a ladle, gently place the ravioli in the water. The ravioli will begin to float when they’re ready. However, you may notice that the ravioli may begin to float too quickly—assume they should remain in the water for ~2min.
Scoop the ravioli out and gently place them in a pasta strainer. Again, do not add any olive oil.
Place ravioli in the large serving dish and add the warm sauce.
Filling:
Boil the spinach for 30 sec-1min in salted water then drain and chop.
In a large bowl, mix the spinach, ground walnuts, ricotta, parmesan, and nutmeg together.
You can make this mix the night before (same with the sauce below), but make sure the mix is not cold when you’re ready to stuff the ravioli since it should spread easily.
Sauce:
Sauté the onions with olive oil; once golden, add the red pepper and garlic; continue to cook.
If the mix is too chunky, put it in the blender.
Place blended mix back in the pan and add salt, pepper, tomatoes, basil (meat optional, original recipe calls for sausage).
This makes a large quantity: enough for ~80 ravioli.
