Ravioli

A few day ago I received it in the mail... My new pasta Maker! YES!  I have made a couple of attempts to make scratch pasta before using rolling pins and white flour mostly, I have ended up with either a starchy mess stuck to the bottom of a pot or something with the look of chewing gum and the texture of leather.  There is a lot of recipe here so I won't mess around with prose too much...  This was actually a three day venture, it didn't have to be, but I have one of those pesky food service jobs and didn't have the days off spend time on this.  The sauce could as easily been one from a jar or your favorite marinara.  The filling I wanted to make ahead so I could work with cold ingredients.

Sunday, The Sauce:
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1  onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
Two 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste

Heat Olive oil in a saute pan then sweat the onion and garlic until tender.  Add the thyme and tomatoes and cook together for a few minutes then add oregano and basil.  Cook for about half an hour then put sauce into a blender and puree until smooth (we like it smooth here, I also strained it you don't have to) .  Put it back into your pan and taste, add oregano, basil, salt and pepper and if it is a little tart some sugar.  Cook until you get the consistency that you like (about another half an hour for me) then put into a non-reactive container and refrigerate

Monday, The filling
1 TBS Olive oil
1/2 medium onion diced
3 coves garlic minced
1/2 pound ground beef
1/2 pound ground veal
1/2 cup fresh spinach leaf chopped fine
2 TBS fresh basil chopped fine
1 tsp Kosher salt
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup ricotta cheese

Heat the olive oil then add the onions and garlic, cook until tender then add the meat and brown.  Add the spinach basil, salt and Parmesan cheese and cook until blended, turn off the heat and add the ricotta cheese and mix well.  When it is all mixed let cool for a few minutes then put the whole mess into a food processor and chop until you get the consistency that you like, mine was well mixed but still crumbly, not completely smooth.  Cover and refrigerate.

Tuesday, the Pasta:
2 cups semolina flour
2 eggs
2 TBS olive oil
2 TBS water (you may need a little more later)
Mix the ingredients together, if you need a little more water add it a few drops at a time.  When it forms into a ball put it on a lightly floured surface and kneed for about 5 minutes then wrap tightly and let it rest for about an hour.

When it is time to go cut the ball of dough into 5 pieces and start rolling... I had help.

Obviously I don't have the process completely down but I did manage to make about 12 disk shaped ravioli.  Heat up the sauce that you choose, while that is going put your ravioli in boiling water.  These took about 5 minutes to heat through.

Ok it looks like a lot went on here but over all it was pretty easy to make ravioli considering it was my first go at it. As for a verdict... we all pretty much agreed that the filling rocked it out!  The pasta was a little thick at the edges.  No problem though, next time I will roll it out a little thinner.