Adventures in Ravioli Making

As promised, here are the steps that I took in making homemade pumpkin ravioli.

I must say, making ravioli is not for the faint of heart. We are so used to cooking frozen or heating up canned ravioli that we take for granted how much effort goes into making the tasty pasta pockets.

BUT...now that I know how, I will be making it on a regular basis. Not just for one or two meals, though. The dough recipe that I used came with the gadget and makes 24 ravioli. This is enough for 2 meals for the two of us, so I cooked 12 and froze 12. My made-up recipe for filling was enough for 2 recipes of the dough. So, next time I'll probably make a double batch of dough to have ravioli in the freezer for future meals.

BUT, Part II...I did not like the dough recipe. It was tough to roll out thin. The thing that I did not like the most was the dough-to-filling ratio in the ravioli. When I eat ravioli, I want to taste the filling, not chew through twice as much pasta as normal to get to the inside.

That said, here's how my first attempt at making homemade ravioli went down:



1. Roll the pasta dough into a rectangle large enough to cover the metal part of the ravioli making gadget. I had problems with the dough made from the recipe that came with the gadget, my flimsy upper arm muscles were not cooperating, either :)

2. Place the dough in the bottom metal part of the gadget. Then place the plastic part of the gadget on top of the dough and gently press. This creates wells to hold the filling.

 3. Put filling in each well. It does not take much filling, be sure to not overload or they will leak.

4. Place another rectangle of dough on top of the filled layer.

5. Using a rolling pin, begin going back and forth over the top layer, pressing it into the bottom layer. Gradually add more pressure until the metal part shows through. Cut away excess dough.

6. The instructions say to tap the ravioli out of the gadget, but that did not work for me. I used the point of a knife to gently lift the ravioli out of the gadget. Be careful not to cut through the dough.

7. The ravioli are now stuffed and ready to cook.

 

If you decide to try this yourself and find a better way, please let me know!

Marcheta *bon appetit!