It’s been a while since i made my own pasta from scratch. I loves pasta. Any pasta! But as you can see, i mostly cook my pasta dishes from dried pasta i bought in supermarket. There are pros and cons about using fresh pasta and dried pasta. But i don’t want to talk about that now. You may prefer fresh pasta because its fresh or you may choose dried pasta because it makes your life easier. Whatever the reason, its your choice and i won’t judge you. And for myself, i don’t mind to eat pasta whether its fresh made or dried. As long as you use fresh ingredients to cook along with the pasta, i’ll be fine.
Alright, i’m gonna share why i cook this dish. Last week, my boyf arrange a meeting with a friend of us. Well this friend was our high school friend’s boyfriend and he turns out to be our friend too. My boyf told me that our friend wanted to try my cook and he requested no seafood (which is a lame thing for me who loves seafoods. Ha!) So, i kept thinking about the request, what should i make? I was thinking about making Tiramisu so my boyf can also enjoy it. But he said no dessert, make main course (quite a demanding, huh?) So main course? All i can think was pasta. But what kind of pasta dishes without seafood? Beef bolognese? Yeah, sounds boring to me. Lasagna? Potato-poteytoh with bolognese. I sticked with the beef since i’m not agreed with pasta and chicken. How about stuffed pasta? Oh yes! Ravioli would be a good choice. And frankly my boyf agreed.
So next challenge is making the pasta. I have all the ingredients but since my food processor is broken, i rarely make pasta. I am very not into kneading a dough with my hand. My first dough end up in trash bin because i knead it too long (you know you’re overworked your pasta when it feel like a rubber dough). And my second dough is much better worked with my pasta machine. Yeaayy!!
I cooked the beef first with onion. I didn’t use seasonings because the juices from the beef already gave me some beefy taste. And i also don’t want the stuffed taste overpowered the sauce i’m going to make. After i rolled the dough and reach the smallest number setting, i was good to stuffed it. First thing you need to do is spread a handful of flour on your surface so the pasta dough won’t stick. Don’t forget to brushed a bit water before you put on the pasta over just to make it stick one to another.
You need to make sure no air is trapped inside the ravioli. If you see my ravioli still had air trapped inside i will show you the effect when we boiled it later. Next is you need to cut the ravioli. You can cut it any shapes you want. I made two shapes, circles and rectangles. If you don’t have pasta cutter like i have, don’t worry, you can use any cookie cutter you have or maybe a glass water to shape you ravioli.
If you have semolina flour, you can mix it with the flour when you make the dough. But here, i use the semolina to spread on the ravioli before i cook it. Why didn’t i use medium flour? Because semolina has rough structures than flour, so when you use before you cook it, it will be easier and the pasta won’t stick. Here is my ravioli…
The dough is done, now you are ready to boiled the ravioli. Just as you cook the dried pasta, you need to put in salt into the water. Not only to make faster to boiled but also to add taste.
Here is the effect if there still air trapped in you ravioli.
As you can see, the air in the ravioli will bulge when you boiled it. But don’t worry, it will gone when as you take it out from pan. Haha..
For the Pomodoro Sauce, i use 7 tomatoes. Boiled it and crushed it with my potato masher and make it smoother on blender. Add 3 or 4 bayleaves, a pinch of oregano, a pinch of thyme and seasonings. Then i’m good to go to eat my ravioli. Enjoy!
Regards,
FubuFebi