Handmade ravioli with mushroom sauce

Handmade Ravioli with Mushroom Sauce

I have been wanting to try pasta making for quite a while. It seems like it should be at least as easy as making cookies. It is just dough that is rolled, cut, and cooked. I do not have a pasta maker, and never saw the need for one....until I started making this ravioli. So that's how to get it nice and thin. A pasta maker. All the same, I don't think I'll be buying a new piece of kitchen equipment for now. The less thin version we've been making is pretty tasty and easy enough, if a bit rustic. I have been trying white and green noodles. We think the green noodles have a lot more flavor, but variety is good, so I will include both pasta recipes here. We used a simple filling of ricotta and parmesan. The mushroom sauce is flexible and could accomodate added meat, or substituing squash or tomatoes for the mushrooms.


Filling
1 1/2 cups ricotta (homemade ricotta is easy, by the way, but that is another post...)
1/3 cup grated parmesan
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1 egg

Mix ingredients together and set aside until ready to assemble raviolis.

Mushroom Sauce (Caprial and John's Kitchen: recipes for cooking together)
1/4 cup EVOO
3 cups sliced mushrooms (wild or crimini taste best)
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup white wine
1 1/2 cups broth
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste

Heat 1 Tb oil in large saute pan over med-high heat. Add mushrooms and saute 3 minutes. Add onion and garlic and saute 1 minute. Add wine and cook until the mixture is almost dry. Add broth and reduce until about 3/4 cup of liquid remains. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside until pasta is ready. At the last minute, add basil and remaining oil and toss with pasta.

Green Noodles (James Beard, slightly amended)
1/2 cup cooked spinach (about 2 cups frozen chopped spinach defrosted and squeezed dry)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 T EVOO
1 egg

White Noodles
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 T EVOO

Noodles:

Blend flours, spinach (for green noodles), salt, EVOO for about 2 minutes. Add the egg(s) and blend until it forms a ball of stiff, dry dough, less than a minute.

At this point, James Beard recommends kneading the dough for 8-10 minutes. Honestly, I don't. I bet the noodles would be easier to roll and stretch better over filling if you kneaded it, but kneading takes 2 hands - a luxury I seldom enjoy. After kneading (or not) cover with a dish towel and let it "rest" for a 1/2 hour or so.
When the dough has rested, cut the ball in half and roll each half as thin as you can. It is hard to get it very thin, and this must be what the pasta maker is for. Ours turn out about twice as thick as what we would buy at the store. We roll it in 2 batches because our board is big enough for about that much. Use a 2" biscuit cutter to make an even number of pasta circles.Put a glop of filling on half the circles. To make raviolis, use water on your fingertip to dampen the edges of one filled circle and one empty cirlce, then press the edges together.
Just a reminder of the reality of cooking with baby on one hip and toddler "helping."
When the raviolis are assembled, boil them in gently boiling salted water. The time depends on how thin you got the dough. I generally estimate the time it takes them to float to the top, then cook them that long again. So, if it takes 3 minutes before they start to float up, I will cook them 6 mintues total. Finally, drain and toss with sauce.