Ravioli
This year I’ll essentially be serving two “main courses” at my Christmas dinner. We will be having ham and also raviolis! Is that a weird combo…maybe.
The people want ham but I am not among those people. I also find ham to be very unexciting to cook, or really, warm up. Take a look below for how to make home made pasta raviolis.
Growing up, it was one of our Christmas traditions to make raviolis each year. Sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas my Pop Pop would gather everyone together and start a ravioli assembly line. It was a big deal when you were old enough to help with the ravioli making instead of just watching or playing in the other room. Pop Pop would freeze the raviolis until Christmas on huge trays and then we’d feast! I have such fond memories of making them each year until my Pop Pop passed away. Some day I’d love to restart this tradition with my kids. So while they might not be a “traditional” Christmas food, they have magical Christmas memories for me.
These ravioli are definitely made a lot easier with a few tools. Kitchen Aid’s pasta maker / roller attachment saves a lot of work because rolling out pasta by hand is a commitment.
You’ll also benefit by having a ravioli mold which also speeds up the process. However, you can easily cut them out into circles with a cookie cutter or a glass and then seal them shut with a fork all the way around.
If you’re like me, once you get all these tools out and you start the process… you might as well make a lot of raviolis. I always make a least two batches. They freeze beautifully so if you have too many you’ll benefit from the surplus later.
If you cook these fresh they’ll be done in 5-6 minutes and if frozen I’d boil them for two minutes.
Raviolis
Ingredients
Pasta
- 4 eggs
- 420 g all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2-4 tbsp water
Filling
- 24 oz whole milk ricotta
- 1/4 cup finely shredded parmesan
- 1 tbsp dried parsley
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 2 eggs
Instructions
- Using a stand mixer combine all four ingredients and stir with the paddle hook until coming together. Start with 2 tablespoons of water and add as needed to have the dough come together. (Will depend on how much moisture your eggs add). Switch to the dough hook and knead for 2 minutes.
- Remove dough to a floured surface and knead for an additional two minutes by hand or until it is coming together and smooth. Let rest for 10-15 minutes.
- Make the filling by stirring all ingredients in a medium bowl until fully combined. Place the filling in a piping bag or ziplock bag with the end snipped off to easily fill your raviolis.
- Cut the dough into 8 pieces and set the pieces you aren’t using yet under a wet paper towel.
- If using the Kitchen Aid pasta roller, start with size one and knead one piece of dough through several times until smooth. Continue feeding the dough through and change the size every other time by increments of 1. You’ll want to end on size 5 for raviolis.
- Fill each ravioli with about two tablespoons of the cheese mixture. Seal the ravioli with a fork or rolling pin (see our video).
- Freeze for later. To cook right away or after frozen. Boil for 6-7 minutes.