It was delicious.
I was pretty impressed with our raviolis. Initially I was a little nervous because I had never made fresh pasta or raviolis, but these turned out perfect. They were full of their imperfections – some large and some small, some square and some rectangle – so they may not have looked like what a seasoned chef would have served, but they tasted delicious!
I’m going to be putting up a few posts from our authentic Italian dinner, but I wanted to start with our second course – Mushroom Ravioli with Pesto.
Once the ravioli is cooked, top with pesto and sprinkle with fresh Parmesan cheese and dinner is ready!
Fresh Pasta
This is Giada de Laurentiis’ recipe from her “Everyday Pasta” cookbook and it was so simple. This makes 1 ½ pounds of pasta, so after Alex rolled out the sheets for ravioli, he also had some left over for fettuccini. I have to admit that Alex did most of the rolling and it took a few tries through to get it the right thickness and size. We used the thinnest setting on the pasta maker.
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
Place the flour in a food processor bowl. In a small bowl, lightly beat eggs. Add the salt and olive oil to the eggs and stir to combine. Add the egg mixture to the food processor with the flour and pulse to combine ingredients, scraping down the sides once or twice. Continue, with the machine running until the liquid is evenly distributed, about 1 minute. The dough should stick together if pinched between your fingers and be cornmeal yellow in color. Some of the dough will be clumping together, but will not form a ball.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Gather the dough into a ball and knead gently until the dough is smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes before rolling and shaping as desired.
Ravioli Filling
I love mushrooms, so I decided to include mushrooms in the filling. Alex also doesn’t feel like any meal is complete without meat, so I added pancetta, which is Italian bacon. Those two ingredients, combined with spinach and ricotta cheese made a really hearty filling.
Ingredients:
1 – 15 ounce container whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 – 10 ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and excess water squeezed out
6 ounces chopped pancetta
6 ounces mushrooms, chopped
2 large egg yolks
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
In a skillet, cook pancetta until cooked through. Move cooked pancetta to a paper towel-lined plate to soak up extra fat. In the same skillet, cook mushrooms until tender, about 7-10 minutes.
In a large bowl, mix ricotta, spinach, pancetta, mushrooms, egg yolks, salt and pepper to blend.
Cut fresh pasta into desired size of ravioli.
Place about ½ to 1 tablespoon filling in the center of a pasta square. Brush the edges of another pasta square lightly with water and top over the square with filling. Pinch the edges to seal. Repeat with remaining pasta and filling.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Working in batches, cook the ravioli until just tender, stirring occasionally, about 3-4 minutes. Transfer ravioli to a large, shallow bowl.
Pesto
This is my absolute favorite recipe for pesto. It can also be made in large batches and frozen. This is also from Giada de Laurentiis.
Ingredients:
2 packed cups fresh basil leaves
¼ cup toasted pine nuts
1 clove garlic
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cut grated Parmesan cheese
In a food processor or blender, pulse the basil, pine nuts, garlic, salt and pepper until finely chopped. With the machine running, gradually add the oil until the mixture is smooth and thick. Add the cheese and pulse until just incorporated.
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