R is for: Ravioli {mushroom & leek}

RAVIOLIS!!

I’ve been saying this for weeks.

So excited to make homemade ravioli. Ever since I made homemade spaghetti with my pasta attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on some sutffed pasta.

As my faithful blog readers are aware, I was recently abiding by a strict, low-carb diet for a couple months. I’m not necessarily going fully off-diet and eating whatever I want, but our unofficial deadline of our Mexico trip sort of sealed the cutoff for strict no-carb living.

Enter these delightful pillows of pasta dough and mushrooms and cheese and butter.

MMMMMMM.

Speaking of those fillings. I decided to do a mix of fresh and dried mushrooms. The dried were porcini, which I rehydrated in boiling water (Reserve the soaking liquid in case you need it for the filling and/or the sauce). The fresh were trumpet mushrooms, which I finely chopped. (*NOTE: Don’t forget to strain and rinse the dried mushrooms to remove any “grit”).

I also wanted to incorporate leeks. Leeks can be very dirty and gritty, so it’s important to rinse them thoroughly after slicing. I used the white and light green portions only.

Saute leeks in a little olive oil, until starting to turn soft and translucent. (I wanted to incorporate leeks into the sauce, so I removed about 1/4 cup of them before adding the rest of the ingredients). Then add two cloves of minced garlic and the fresh mushrooms and saute until the mushrooms release their moisture. Add in the chopped, rehydrated porcinis If you feel the mixture is getting dry, you can add some of the strained, reserved mushroom broth. Season with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper and stir in fresh parsley.

From here, transfer to a bowl and mix with 1/2 cup of ricotta cheese. Just enough to bind everything together. I also threw in some Parmesan for good measure.

Now for the pasta. I thought about doing whole wheat as I did with the spaghetti or gluten free, as I did with the gnocchi. But in the end, I decided to do a regular ol’ pasta with half all purpose flour and half semolina flour. When buying dried pasta, you might notice that many times it uses durum semolina flour. I believe it’s a little heartier than more refined flours, and holds up better for pasta. But you can certainly make it without semolina.

Semolina is a LOT heavier than normal flour, so it’s very important to start out with less than you need and add more as you go along. I learned this the hard way. I basically did 1 egg per 3/4 cup or 3 ounces of flour. To use up all the filling, I made the dough twice. Start by making a mound of the two flours thoroughly combined, along with some salt and pepper. Slowly incorporate the eggs and then knead for about three minutes, adding more flour if needed, until you have a big round ball of dough.

Initially, the dough will be sticky and tough to work with… so a bench knife can be your friend here to help scrape up the bits. (BTW, the process is more detailed here.) The finished dough should be slightly wet feeling, but not sticky. If it feels sticky, add more flour. If it feels dry, add a little water by wetting your fingertips. I found this dough to need less flour than I did with my spaghetti, which was a drier dough (and a bit more forgiving).

(Note: I wouldn’t recommend making the dough ahead of time. Make it the day you plan to make your pasta).

Wrap dough in plastic wrap and allow to rest at room temperature at least 20-30 minutes. When you’re ready to make pasta, tear or cut off a piece about the size of your palm. Begin rolling it at setting #1, folding it in half or in thirds a few times before moving onto setting #2. Dust with a little bit of flour if dough begins to stick at all. Continue working until you have a nice, thin sheet at setting #4 or #5 (or whatever your pasta roller recommends).

I used this particular ravioli mold, but you can totally do it free-hand if you’d like, or try individual ravioli stamps for bigger ravioli. If you are using a mold, be sure to sprinkle it with flour.

Drape a sheet of pasta and gently press into the openings. Fill with the mushroom mixture and gently press down.

Top with another sheet of pasta and dust with flour. Use the mini rolling pin to tap down on each ravioli to get the filling to drop into the mold. Then, using a rocking motion, roll over the mold to cut the raviolis.

Transfer to a baking sheet dusted with semolina flour and allow to dry slightly. Look at them!! SO, so pretty.

If you aren’t planning on eating the pasta right away, I recommend freezing them. Simply pop the slightly dried ravioli into the freezer on the sheet pan. Allow to flash freeze for about an hour and then transfer to resealable plastic freezer bags. To cook, drop fresh OR frozen ravioli into a pot of salted boiling water and cook until they begin to float (just a couple of minutes).

From there, you can finish with your favorite sauce. Since I wanted to highlight the mushrooms, I decided to do a simple sauce of butter, mushroom broth and chives. I topped with more chives, some of the sautéed leeks, shaved Parmesan and toasted hazelnuts. (But would also be good with a simple marinara sauce).

Buon Apetito!