Orcas Island January Ravioli

Ravioli

The best thing for me about not having the restaurant open is being able to cook and eat at home with my family.  We tend to make a lot of simple meals, this January night we made ravioli, one was filled with roast squash (adults) and the other with a mixture of parsley, mozzarella and reggiano (kids).  No trickery here.

There are many pasta recipes, using flours of many types,  oo flour, bread flour, a.p. flour etc...  I like to use straight semolina, I like the density that it gives and once you get used to it, it is quite easy to work with.  It absorbs  moisture more slowly than almost any other flour, so you need to compensate when initially mixing the dough.  For hand cut noodles, it dries and holds very well.

I take 2 cups (approximately) semolina, three fresh local eggs, a short glug of extra virgin olive oil and a touch of water to help make the right consistency, remember that the semolina will take 20 minutes or more to absorb all the liquid, so you want it to start out just a bit loose.  I find that when I cook the pasta in salted water and have seasoned the filling, salt is not needed in the dough (not sure what Mario or the Cool Guy says).  You can mix with a paddle in a Kitchen Aid or by hand.  Even if you use a mixer, turn it out on a wood table to work with your hands a bit, just to feel the dough with your hands.  Let it rest and relax before rolling.

I just use a hand roller, and work the Ravioli sheets to number five (for our machine, they do differ) , if it is too sticky, dust everything with some semolina.  Place the filling into a pastry bag with a large straight tip and carefully lay down the filling, I can go three wide if I am careful.  The next sheet goes over the top, make sure that the sides are stretched to fit the bottom sheet, a helper at this point can be advantageous.  Start at one end and work down the middle, taking care to remove all the air surrounding the filling, then do the same to the sides and crimp with a pastry cutter of fork.  You can make larger ravioli if you are having a hard time with three across (this is not a contest, the only hero is the one who cleans up).

You can fill pasta with anything, just make sure that it, a) tastes great, b) is sealed well and has some structure when hot, no explosions.  For tonight, a super easy saute of mushroom, caramelized onion, chicken stock with chopped parsley with reggiano landed on the ravioli when they finished cooking, which really only take several minutes when this fresh.