A few weeks ago about 8 members of my family got together so that my Aunt Connie could teach us how to make homemade ravioli. Years ago she used to help her mother make tray after tray of raviolis or other homemade pastas, but she had never made any on her own.
We started out a little shaky, but we had so much fun learning how to make ravioli. I made the first batch of dough, but after that my mom was the queen of dough making. My Aunt Connie and cousin Cristina manned the pasta crank. Kelly and I worked the ravioli forms. My dad filled in for a little while once Cristina got tired of holding the pasta crank in place. My Uncle Andy did an excellent job of supervising and Cliff took the pictures. Then the rest of the family came over to eat!
Think we made enough???
We spent about 4 hours making ravioli. We ended up with around 225! It was a lot of work but it was worth it. The point of getting together was to learn how to make ravioli but it also was a chance to spend time with family, carry on old traditions, and start new traditions. We used all the same equipment that my Aunt used to make ravioli with her mother. We even used her hand crank pasta roller, which will soon be replaced with an electric one! We even used the original recipe that she used. It was amazing the history that the recipe holds. Even though you can google “homemade ravioli” and get a million hits, it means something to use the same recipe your family has been using for decades, maybe more. In the end, we enjoyed a fabulous meal, but more importantly it brought the whole family together.
Here is the recipe we used. It is in Italian but unless you know the Sicilian dialect you won’t be able to read it!
Measure the flour using a kitchen scale
Make a well in the flour
Add the eggs
Add the olive oil
Mix it together and add water as needed
Knead the dough
Keep kneading it
Put it through the pasta roller
Put it through again
Lay the dough on the ravioli form and use the press to create pockets
When you take the press off it should look like this
Add your filling
Add the second layer of pasta
Go over it with a rolling pin
Remove each ravioli from the press
Crimp the edges with a fork
Place the raviolis on a towel and let them dry
Ready to eat?
I can’t wait to make more, they were so good!!
Caesar says: Where’s mine?
- 1.5 pounds flour (We used Cerasota brand, Aunt Connie says it’s the best)
- 2 eggs
- drizzle of olive oil
- water (as much as the dough needs)
- 2 lbs of ricotta cheese
- 1 cup grated romano cheese
- 3 eggs
- 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley
- 1 lb of finely ground veal
- ½ pound finely ground pork
- ½ pound finely ground beef
- 2 eggs
- chopped fresh parsley
- 1 pound chopped spinach, cooked
- 1-2 cups of grated romano cheese
- ½ cup bread crumbs
- 2 teaspoons Allspice
- salt and pepper to taste
- olive oil
- Measure out 1.5 pounds of flour using a kitchen scale. Add the flour to a large bowl. Whisk the eggs. Make a well in the flour. To the well add the eggs and the olive oil. Start to knead the dough. Add a little water until you reach the desired consistency. Keep kneading the dough with your hands.
- Grab a handful of dough and put it through the pasta roller. It will probably come out with holes in it. Fold the dough and put it through again. Adjust the roller to make the dough thinner. Put it through again. You should have long, thin pasta with no holes. Lay it on the ravioli form. Put the top form over the dough to make pockets. Fill with your filling of choice. We did some with ricotta cheese and some with meat (see below for exact recipe for each filling).
- Place another piece of dough over the filling. Roll over it with a rolling pin. Remove the ravioli from the form and crimp the edges with a fork so you don’t lose any filling while it cooks. Let the ravioli sit out long enough for them to dry out.
- Fill a large pot with water and salt generously. Bring to a boil and add the ravioli. Let them cook for around 5 minutes. Drain the ravioli and coat them with your favorite red sauce. Serve extra red sauce on the side.
- Mix well and spoon onto ravioli. About 1 to 1 ½ tablespoons per ravioli.
- Brown the meat with a little olive oil. Drain excess oil/fat. Mix all ingredients together. Salt and pepper to taste. Spoon about 1 to 1 ½ tablespoons filling into each ravioli.
- This was our first time making homemade ravioli so I do not have foolproof directions. My aunt had made ravioli before but not for a long, long time. It was trial and error at first, but eventually she got her groove back!
