Homemade Raviolis

One of the best things about Homemade Raviolis is that you have complete control over how they’re made. There are three components to consider when making raviolis; filling, dough, and sauce.

The filling is limited only by your imagination. Meat, seafood, vegetables, mushrooms, and cheese is just a start.

Meat Raviolis fried in Olive Oil, with herbs and shallot

The pasta dough is very important. It has to stretch over the filling, stick to itself and hold up to a great amount of handling. After years of struggling with various recipes, I finally found one by Tyler Florence on the Food Network. My early batches of raviolis were made completely by hand, now I try to automate the process as much as possible. Currently I use a pasta roller attachment for my Kitchenaid. The Ravioli maker, is a cast aluminum rack of 12 holes surrounded by zigzag  borders, with a corresponding piece of plastic with 12 dimples that stretches the dough enough to make pockets to put the filling in.
The Kitchenaid pasta roller attachment will make a long sheet of pasta that fits over the ravioli maker's rack, The plastic tray fits over the rack, making dimples in the dough, fill the 12 dimples, then cover the rack with another sheet of pasta, run a rolling pin over the assembly. The pressure from the rolling pin, pinches the dough together , cutting it on the zigzag borders, making 12 raviolis.
  All of the automated equipment isn’t necessary , dough can be made by hand, and rolled out with a rolling pin or hand cranked pasta machine, dollops of filling can be laid out on a sheet of pasta on the counter, the second sheet can be laid on top of the other and the dull side of a butter knife can be used to press and cut the dough.

When rolling out the dough, keep in mind that the dough is doubled over, so to keep from minimizing the taste of your filling, keep the dough as thin as possible.

Whatever filling you decide to make, take into consideration that the filling is surrounded by dough, so often times it pays to over season the filling, especially meat filling that’s also going to be served in a bold sauce.

Sauce can be homemade, store bought, or fixed up store bought. Red sauce is traditional, but for variety consider, a pesto sauce or in the case of sea food ravioli, try an alfredo, white wine or cheese sauce . One of my favorite ways to enjoy homemade raviolis is with no sauce at all. In a large pot of lightly salted boiling water drop frozen raviolis, most will sink, when they start to float they are getting close to done. In a large fry pan, sauté some shallot, maybe some mushrooms in a healthy dose (more than you’d typically use) of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Off to the side have some chopped herbs (Italian Parsley, Oregono, Rosemary, sage Garlic) Once the raviolis are close to done and the shallots are translucent, drain the raviolis and put them into the sauté. As the raviolis start to crisp up, put your fresh herb mix in the pan and finish cooking to the desired brown, crispness. Serve with shredded parmesan cheese.

Dough Recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/pasta-dough-for-ravioli-recipe2

Raviolis keep very well frozen – care must be taken that they don’t break!
I have this odd piece of Tupperware the top and bottom are the same depth, it’s wide and shallow enough to hold 20 raviolis in a 4 x 5 grid, I use the thin plastic sheets used as semi-disposable cutting boards, that I cut to fit inside the container. I put 20 raviolis down, a sheet of plastic on top of them, another 20 and another plastic sheet – I can fit 140 Raviolis (12 dozen less 4) in the container and freeze them. A handy way is to lay the raviolis out on a cookie sheet, freeze them individually (if they stick to the cookie sheet, just gently drop the cookie sheet from a inch or two above the counter)  then store them in a resealable bag or plastic ware. 

Meat Filling

Meat Raviolis fried in Olive Oil, with herbs & shallot, Parmesan

1 ½ lbs Ground beef
4 table spoons minced Italian Parsley
2 table spoons minced Rosemary
2 table spoons minced Oregono
2 table spoons minced Sage
2 table spoons chopped garlic
½ to 1 cup red wine
¼ cup Worchester sauce
Salt & pepper to taste
Brown the meat in a large skillet (do not pour off the grease), add the remaining ingredients. Continue to cook the meat until the liquid disappears, continue to stir the meat mixture until it becomes dry and starts to brown. To make the ground meat easier to work with I run it through a food processor chopping it finely.