Fresh Pasta

Today I had my first attempt at fresh pasta! I decided to make my sister-in-law Julie's Chicken Ravioli, and it turned out pretty good! I learned a few things along the way, and thought I'd share how I made the pasta with you all.


First of all, the recipe for pasta dough I used was from Food Network's Mario Batali. The basic recipe is as follows, and is for doing it all by hand, rather than with a pasta machine.

Eggless Semolina Pasta Dough
2 c. all-purpose flour
2 c. semolina flour
1 to 1 1/4 c. water (as needed)

Mix the flours on a flat dry work surface, and make a well in the center. Add the water, a little at a time, while stirring with one hand. Once you get around half the flour mixture combined with the water, start kneading the dough, adding water as necessary. (The dough will come together eventually.) Knead for 8-10 minutes. The dough will start to be glossy and smooth, although on the hard, tough side up until the very end of kneading. (It will still be tough.) Wrap in plastic and let rest at room temperature for 30-45 minutes before rolling.

When rolling, cut dough into 2 or 3 pieces and then roll out into sheets. Cut into desired shapes.




The dough after it's been kneaded




Rolling out the dough




Filling the ravioli



For the ravioli, roll out the pasta into long rectangles. Place the chicken mixture (the sort-of recipe will follow) in little mounds on one side of the rectangle. Fold over the rectangle so that it looks like this:





Cut in between each mound, and press around the mound of filling to seal the ravioli. I used an egg wash as "glue," but I also found this isn't necessary. (Egg wash: 1 egg and 1 teaspoon water, whisked.) Once they are cut and sealed, lay them out on a damp paper towel or a piece of wax paper, and DO NOT STACK!!! I found this out the hard way, and wrecked about 8 ravioli.

To cook, drop into boiling, salted water that has a touch of olive oil in it for 3-5 minutes. Fish them out with a slotted spoon and place in your serving bowl. Enjoy!







Julie's Chicken Filling
Half a chicken breast, boiled and shredded
Ricotta cheese
Parmesan cheese
Fresh chopped parsley
Garlic powder
Salt

All of this is to taste. I used a few scoops of ricotta, a handful of Parmesan, a handful of parsley, probably a teaspoon of garlic powder and half a teaspoon of salt. This will be enough to fill your pasta. I actually made double this recipe, so I'll be making more pasta tomorrow to use up the rest.




Julie's Homemade Pasta Sauce
2 cans tomato puree
Dash of red wine vinegar
Dash of olive oil
Italian seasonings to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
Dash of hot sauce to taste

At the end of heating up this sauce, add a dash of cream and serve.



The extra ravioli can be frozen, just separate the individual ravioli with wax paper.





Downloadable recipe!

This entry was posted on 4.24.2008 and is filed under ,,,. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response.

2 Responses to “Fresh Pasta”

Elizabeth Wall said...

Ooooh, I'm so hungry right now, and that looks SO good...

Jordan Boesch said...

lol! It was a lot of fun to make the pasta too!