Handmade Ravioli

For years ravioli was my favorite food when anyone would ask.  (Nowadays I have digressed into the very childish favorite food of pizza.  I can't help it, I just LOVE pizza!)  I have been wanting to attempt homemade ravioli for some time now and was inspired by one of my favorite blogs, Art and Aioli, to finally try it.  We had the semolina flour leftover from galaktoboureko, and we got a fluted pastry wheel for Christmas.

I started making the dough which was supposed to be "stiff" and immediately thought that it was too dry.  Brett encouraged me to keep stirring and sure enough it tightened up...a lot.  I got tired pretty quickly so Brett jumped in and did the 10 minutes of kneading.  While he did that, I got my filling ready.  I say "my filling" because Brett and I each wanted a different flavor ravioli.  I went with a very traditional 4 cheese filling: ricotta, parmesan, romano, and asiago.  When Brett was done kneading he got to work on his filling: ham and swiss.

Once the dough had rested, it was time to roll it out.  I started to tear the ball of dough in half (half for me and half for Brett) and realized that this was going to be very difficult to roll out.  The dough was extremely elastic!  As soon as you did anything to it, it would start heading back to the way it was.  I had to use two hands on the roller and all my body weight to roll that baby out. I thought I would never get it thin enough that I could see through it, but sure enough, it got there.  Now I know why pasta rollers exist.

I used the nice little squares on my rolling mat to gauge where to put the filling and egg wash, and where to cut.  They made such cute little ravioli.  They looked almost professional, except for the fact that they were way too thick.

Once they were in the boiling water, some of them started to pop up to the top instantaneously (the sign that they are done) but I could not accept that they were ready, so I let them go the full recommended three minutes.

Some of you may find it funny that I went through all the trouble of making handmade ravioli and then poured some Prego on top.  Oh well.  At least I know that Prego is good.  I had to have one guarantee in this meal.  The ravioli were good but just way too thick.  I ended up eating the thick part all the way around and then having one wonderful bite left from the middle with all the filling.  We think that because of the thickness that they were a little under done, but we aren't sure.  Brett's turned out good too.  His ham and swiss filling was more flavorful than mine, but I'm a sucker for tradition.

While the meal was an overall success, we have vowed not to make homemade pasta again until we have a pasta roller.