Meat Ravioli

So... meat ravioli... have you seen them anywhere? It seems that cheese ravioli has successfully overthrown the entire pasta world and driven out meat ravioli. Or at least driven it into hiding in cans from franco american.

I finally gave up trying to find these and, like all things that end up good, decided to make them myself. I took about ten minutes of online research and decided to go with a couple recipes. The first, for the pasta, came from here. The second came from a nice blog honoring this woman's italian grandmother... here.

Let me just take a second and let you know that the pictures are going to have to come in a group at the bottom of this post because of the limitations of the app that I am using to write the blog... sorry about that...

I have only made pasta once before, and really that's even lying. I tried to make pasta and succesfully made some sort of quick hardening paste. This time, I wanted to go with something that I could make in my kitchen aid. I am happy to say that this pasta comes out amazing. Its easy too! The meat filling is quite good as well, though be warned if you try to follow this, it makes about twice as much as you need, I would cut the recipe in half.

By the way, I put on a pot of spaghettis sauce and sausages right at the start and let the thing cook over low the whole time I cooked... this takes a while. The whole process took about two hours for me, but I tried to be all fancy with the ravioli.

Here is what I did for the pasta.
2 1/3 cups of all purpose flour
1 cup of semolina flour (I found this at stop and shop in gardner, but it is listed as "pasta flour"
1 teaspoon of salt
1 Tbs olive oil
4 eggs
2 Tablespoons water

Easy right? Actually, in all honesty, it was really really easy. So, pour out the flours in the bowl of your kitchen aid along with the salt and the olive oil. Mix on slow until it is nicely combined. Whisk the eggs together with the water, whisk it well because you want all of those egg whites nicely fluid. Pour the egg water mixture slowly into the bowl containing the flour mixture while the beater is still running. Give this enough time to really let it combine... don't go too fast. When it is combined, test the wetness of the dough by grabbing some and trying to form it into a ball. The dough should hold together but not be sticky. It should feel dry.

Form the dough into two nice balls and wrap them with plastic wrap. After you have done that, press the balls into two flat rounds and let them sit at room temperature for at least half an hour and up to 2 hours.

Once the dough has set long enough its time to form it into pasta sheets. These instructions are exactly my attempt at using the kitchen aid pasta rolling attachment for the second time in my life.... If I committed and cardinal sins, you can let me know...

I took the first round and rolled it to about 1/2 an inch thick with a rolling pin on a very lightly floured counter. Its important that the pasta rectangle doesn't get too wide for the pasta rolling attachment. The first round I made ended up a bit too wide and the pasta bound up on the sides which then tore it as it went through. I then took that torn sheet and folded it in half again length wise, pushed in the edges until it was the right width again and sent it through again. This really did the trick. I did this again and I had a nice smooth sheet. I sent this through the pasta attachment again and each time adjusted it to the next thinnest level, finally ending up on the second thinnest level, on my attachment, that was level 7. That round wound up being four very long (about two feet long) sheets of pasta. I took a glass and pressed the top onto the pasta, creating round cut outs and actually made the ravioli before I started on the other round. Here is the recipe for the meat filling:

Meat Filling:

1 pound 85% lean ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small carrot, grated
1/2 stalk celery, diced
1/4 cup pecorino romano cheese, grated
1/4 gup parmigiano reggiano cheese, grated
1 tsp nutmeg (or to taste)
1/2 tsp allspice (or to taste)
salt and pepper to taste
extra virgin olive oil
1 egg

Put a table spoon of oil in a large pan and sweat the onion, garlic, carrot and celery over medium high heat. Once the onions are translucent, put in the ground beef and cook completely. Drain the meat after if you have to. I didn't. Take that yummy mixture and let it cool. Once it is cooled, combine it with the cheese (I only used parmigiana btw) and the nutmeg and allspice and put it in a food processor with the cooled meat mixture. If you want to season the mixture with salt and pepper, now is the time. Add the egg and process it all until the mixture is nice and pasty. (just a few good pulses)

Raviolis:
Take the first sheet and cut out rounds using the top of a glass. The rounds might not cut completely, it doesn't matter, you can rip it out the rest of the way later. You could also go the easy way and just cut the pasta into squares. Put a scant tablespoon of meat in every other round. Take the empty round and lift it out of the pasta sheet, carefully not letting it tear. Dab your finger in a glass of water and paint the edges of the round lightly with water. Put the empty round on top of the meat-filled one, wet side down, and seal the edges by pushing down with some pressure. Pick up the ravioli and crimp the edges about every half inch... see the picture, its easy but a bit hard to describe. Just keep on going until you have all of the pasta done. I just tossed them in a bowl and they were just fine. And that is that! Get a pot of salted water boiling at a light boil and drop the ravioli in. When they float to the top of the water, they're done. (It took about three minutes.) Oh, and important... don't throw away the scraps from the pasta sheets! I took a pizza cutter and cut them into one inch strips. Throw them in the water after the ravioli is done for about a minute and serve it along side! If you had that sauce going while you worked, you will have a deeply meat flavored sauce and have it all read to go. Good luck!

db