Making ravioli

For two years, my culinary goals list has included "make stuffed pasta". I had made enough homemade pasta to feel comfortable making it, but stuffed pasta seemed like a lot more.

Leading up to a dinner we went to last week where a friend prepared an elaborate dinner with burgundy and white truffles, my portion of helping out was to prepare the homemade pasta (linguine) so it could be served with a cream sauce and white alba truffles. So that brought me back into the pasta-making world and getting me back into it.

So with Thanksgiving week here and a ton of cooking planned, I decided to make ravioli. Butternut squash seemed the easiest filling, so I bought one, and per a Biba recipe, I roasted it in the oven, then mashed it and added parmigiano reggiano and nutmeg.

I started off putting the dough together and then Josh steps in to knead it. Then we rolled it out and stuffed the ravioli. The ravioli stuffing was a little harder than I expected. I rolled it out to the "8" setting which is the second thinnest on the machine. I read online that people recommended going to "9" but I think it would have ripped. So you lay out the sheets (I need longer cutting boards or a stone countertop!) and put the filling with the appropriate space apart for the ravioli cutter. We have a round stamp which I found rather hard to stamp and cut out. Maybe we need one of those rolling cutters. Anyway, after a couple learning experiences, they were turning out pretty well. You lay them on a clean kitchen towel and then drop them into the hot water when they are all done.

Everything says that ravioli are done when they float, so they cooked for only like 30 seconds. I had made a brown butter sauce and tossed the ravioli in with a little extra salt and pepper and then topped with more parmigiano reggiano.

The filling was a lit coarser than I would have liked, but it was simple and good. The sauce was basic but tasty. All in all, a good first try. And not too much work to do on a weekend, though maybe too much to start and finish on a weekday.