Ravioli Lessons Learned

As with most others, part of my family's Christmas traditions center around the food we eat to celebrate the holiday. With that being the measuring stick, I went on a ravioli bender unparalleled in previous years. I made raviolis three different times the week before Christmas - once with a friend, so that we could have some to give for Christmas gifts, once with my extended family, so that we could have them to eat for Christmas dinner, and once with my husband's extended family, so that they could have them to eat for Christmas Eve dinner. I paid closer attention to the process this year with the intent of this post in mind. Here are some lessons I learned:
1. The quality of the ingredients does matter. At a basic level,I knew this was the case. But, I had the opportunity to taste the difference within a few days of using the different quality ingredients, and to reflect on that difference immediately after tasting it. For example, on one occasion, homemade breadcrumbs were used in the filling, and I could feel and taste the difference. The filling was firmer with the homemade breadcrumb, and the taste difference was more a lack of taste. I could taste the bread in the other (non-homemade) fillings, and that is not what it is meant for. The cheese and other ingredients should shine. The crumbs are meant for texture, not taste. Another example came when my friend managed to get us some homemade ricotta (from some guy in Altoona, PA) and I decided that, done properly, the plain cheese filling, as opposed to the veal and spinach or the sausage and cheese we also traditionally make, are my favorite.
2. Neither of my grandma's are totally right about the dough recipe. (If you know my grandmas, please do not tell them I said this, and please do not print this and show it to them, as I plan to lie through my teeth if ever questioned about it.) My mom's mom uses two eggs to every one cup of flour, and my dad's mom uses one egg to every one cup of flour. The former is too wet to hold up to the filling, and the latter too dry. I basically split the difference, erring a little more on the dry side.
3. Low boil = less broken raviolis.
4. Raisin raviolis are wonderful. I don't particularly care for raisins, usually opting to leave them out of recipes or substitute. But, my neighbor, whom I trust when it comes to food issues, insisted that I try a filling with ricotta and raisins. That was basically the only instruction he gave me, and my friend and I ran with it. We added some Parmesan, eggs, a bit of sugar (less than 1/4 c for 3 lbs ricotta), and some nutmeg. We even ate them with tomato sauce, as instructed. They were fabulous! The raisins were a pleasant surprise in an otherwise mundane ravioli. And, the sugar and nutmeg didn't bother me when paired with the sauce. Who knew?
5. Eat them fresh! They are quite good when boiled from frozen, but they are unparalleled with taken from the ravioli form to the water.

Here is my basic recipe (revised...sorry Grandmas)

dough:
1.25 eggs to every 1 cup flour
dash salt
olive oil, if needed to moisten

basic cheese filling:
ricotta
grated Parm/Romano
breadcrumb
egg yolks
parsley
fresh ground pepper
Base the amounts on the lbs of ricotta you start with, using the following ratios:
lbs ricotta to grated cheese 2:1
lbs ricotta to breadcrumb 2:1
lbs ricotta to egg yolk 1:1
parsley and pepper to taste

We have tried lots of other filling combinations, with honorable mentions going to seafood and sun dried tomato. But, we always make a ground veal and spinach filling (those ingredients mixed with enough of the above ricotta filling to bind) and a ground sausage filling (same method as the veal and spinach) as they have proven to be crowd pleasers time and time again.

I need to recover from this over-1,000-made ravioli bender. While I avoid the process, I wish you happy ravioli-ing