Italian Entree
CHEESE RAVIOLI
INGREDIENTS – PASTA
3 cups or more of flour (¼ cup more later in FINAL STAGE)
2 eggs
¾ cup or more water
INGREDIENTS – FILLING
¾ cup ricotta cheese
¼ cup grated, or chopped, mozzarella cheese
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon basil
½ teaspoon salt (Used 3 times for a total of 2 teaspoons)
1 garlic clove
INGREDIENTS – MARINARA SAUCE
6 Roma tomatoes
½ large white onion
2 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons basil
½ teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon thyme
1 6 ounce can tomato sauce
INGREDIENTS – FINAL STAGE
water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup flour
SPECIAL UTENSILS
rolling pin
cutting board
Makes about 40 ravioli.
PREPARATION – PASTA
Combine flour, eggs, and water. Mix with hands and make a ball of the mixture. It should just be able to come off your hand. If some of the ball sticks to your hand, then add a bit more flour, mix again, and try the new flour. If the flour ball is powdery, it is too dry. (If you suddenly feel like bowling, the flour ball is too heavy.) Add a bit more water, mix again, and try the consistency again. You might need to do this a number of times.
Sprinkle a generous amount of flour on your cutting board and rolling pin. Roll flour ball out until it is NO THICKER than ¼-inch. Frequently sprinkle the rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking. Let rolled-out flour sit for AT LEAST 4 hours. It should be nearly dry.
PREPARATION – FILLING
While rolled out flour dries, mince 1 garlic glove. Combine ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, and Parmesan cheese, basil, salt, (First use of salt.) and garlic in mixing bowl. Mix with hands. Put cheese filling in fridge.
PREPARATION – MARINARA SAUCE
Mince Roma tomatoes. Peel and mince onion and 2 garlic cloves. Add tomato, onion, garlic, basil, marjoram, oregano, salt, (Second use of salt.) thyme, and tomato sauce to sauce pot. Cook on medium-high heat until mixture boils, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes with the lid on. Stir occasionally.
FINAL PREPARATION
Dust cutting board with flour. Use knife to cut 1½-inch wide strips in the flour. Cut these strips into rectangles every 3-inches. (Don’t use these rectangles while reading. They make disappointing bookmarks.) Dust strips with flour. Put a ½ teaspoon or so of the filling on the right side of the 1½-inch by 3-inches flour rectangle. Fold the left side over the filling. Push down on the open sides with the tines of the fork to seal the ravioli.
Fill pot with enough water to cover ravioli. Add salt (Third use of salt.) and olive oil. Boil water. Add ravioli and cook for 20 to 30 minutes. Ravioli should float to the top and the dough should be completely soft. (Now you know why restaurant ravioli are expensive.)
Meanwhile back at the range, cook pasta sauce in pot on medium heat until it is warm. Put ravioli in bowl and add pasta sauce.
TIDBITS
1) The singular form of “ravioli” is “raviolo.”
2) Scarcely anyone eats ravioli for breakfast.
3) But there is a ravioli burrito.
4) Oh my gosh, there is a lutefisk burrito.
5) Why?!! Why?!! Oh the humanity, oh the culinary carnage!
6) Horrors! There is such a thing as a lutefisk ravioli!
7) I think I need to sit down and have a nice, tall frosty mug of root beer.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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