Homemade Ravioli

Ok, so I'm not really a "dough" person.  I can sear, sautee, toss, chop, mince and season with the best of them, but when it comes to scientific measurements I'm sadly out of my element.  My mother has the gift of desserts, my sister makes the meanest pumpkin cheesecake I've ever met, but somehow I got the salad gene.  It's good for my figure but not so good for the annual Cookie Party/competition that I'm already getting night sweats over, and it's not so good for expanding my culinary repertoire.  But I don't let that stop me!  A cursory google search of homemade ravioli recipes belies the finer points of dough preparation.  It's just flour, eggs and water, how hard can it be??  I found my recipe here - I should have been alarmed at the ingredient listing of "enough water to make a smooth dough."

The ingredients: egg yolks, flour (I used a combo of buckwheat and whole wheat flour, cuz I'm crunchy like that).

 

This is me adding way too much water to the mix.  Luckily I had an advisor on staff who guided me in adding flour until it got back to normal.  This then resulted in much more pasta dough then was necessary, but that's ok since putting together the raviolis presents its own challenges.

Rollin it out.  Workin it out.  I have no problem with a little elbow grease, and I think I got the dough as thin as humanly possible, but there's a reason that pasta makers were invented.  One of my challenges with the finished product was the super dense dough.  This was partly due to the addition of buckwheat, and partly because it wasn't rolled out thin enough.

 

The filling: sauteed crimini mushrooms with shallots and reggiano.  This was de-lish.  My whole vision with the buckwheat and the mushrooms was sort of a rustic burly kind of pasta experience, which actually succeeded for the most part.

Dollops of filling are strategically placed on the dough.

Egg is brushed around the filling - this will help seal on the other layer of dough.

Press the top layer around your mounds :)  You will then cut out around the mounds in whatever shape pleases you.

I used big rectangles.  I planned to serve them in a yummy broth and imagined big ravioli pillows floating in broth.  Next time I won't leave so much dough around the edges, it was a little too dense for my taste.

You can freeze your ravioli for use throughout the year or cook immediately.  Since I was actually serving these the next day, I just refrigerated over night.  Boil for 2-3 minutes in salted (and I threw in a little olive oil) water.  If you're going straight from frozen into the water, give it an extra minute or two.  One of my new favorite things is cheese broth - simmer parmesan rinds in water for a couple hours and add any additional seasonings; salt & pepper, herbs, etc.  I used homemade chicken broth from a few months ago, which I reduced over a couple hours with the parmesan rinds.  I added chopped sage at the last minute.  Serve the ravioli in broth, salt/pepper, grated parmesan, chopped parsley, and red pepper flakes.  Now if only I could bring ravioli to the Cookie Party!