spinach-ricotta ravioli

Tonight we had spinach-ricotta ravioli, from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. It was surprisingly a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, and veeerrrrry yummy :)

Fresh Egg Pasta

Makes: 4 servings

Time: About 1 hour

Ingredients:

• About 2 c. all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
• 1 t. salt
• 2 eggs
• 3 egg yolks

Steps:

1. (This step is 2-parts in the book; one for if you have a food processor, and one if you don't. I do, so I'm not going to write down the "by hand" part. If you want it, let me know and I'll give it to you.)
   Combine the flour and salt in the container and pulse once or twice. Add the eggs and yolks all at once and turn the machine on. Process just until a ball begins to form, about 30 seconds. Add a few drops of water if the dough is dry and grainy; add a tablespoon of flour if the dough sticks to the side of the bowl.
2. Sprinkle the dough with a little of the reserved flour and cover with plastic or a cloth; let it rest for about 30 minutes. You can store the dough in the fridge, in plastic, until you're ready to roll it out, for up to 24 hours.

At this point the recipe talks about putting it through a pasta machine to roll it out, and cutting it down to the right size for what you want. I chose to forgo all that, and just sort of wing it, rolling it out and cutting by hand.

Filling Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1/2 c. cooked spinach, squeezed dry and chopped (I used frozen chopped spinach, thawed)
• 1 1/2 c. ricotta, drained if really liquid-y
• 1/4 c. chopped parsley (skipped it)
• 1 t. minced garlic
• A small grating of nutmeg (I used a small "sprinkle" from the spice jar)
• 1 c. grated Parmesan
• Salt

Steps:

1. Combine egg, spinach, ricotta, parsley, garlic, nutmeg and Parmesan in a bowl and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for up to a day or use immediately.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Cut each pasta sheet into 2 or more 4-inch wide strips. Drop heaping teaspoons of the filling at about 1.5 inch intervals, about 1 inch away from the edges. Do this on half of the dough, then fold the dough over onto itself, pressing with your fingers to seal around each filling. Trim the dough with a sharp knife or fluted pastry wheel, then cut into individual ravioli.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Cook the ravioli, 20 or 30 at a time, for just a few minutes, until they rise to the surface. Drain, sauce, and serve immediately.

In one of the tips I've read, it says to wet the area in between each filling ball so that the pasta sticks to itself. This was TOTALLY helpful. Given that I don't have a massive counter space, I had to roll out/cut out only about 8 ravioli at a time. In between the rolling and cutting, I put the finished ravioli on a floured baking pan in the freezer. This worked well to keep their shape since it's hot out until I was ready to cook them all.

We served the ravioli with sauce from a jar, because after an hour of ravioli making, I didn't feel like making homemade sauce :)

Overall, this was GREAT! I found that I didn't roll the pasta as thin as I probably ought to have, but it didn't make the taste different. I will probably use the pasta maker next time...I was just too lazy to find mine in one of the zillion boxes in the basement.