Like many things, cooking gets easier with practice. Homemade pasta is taking a lot of practice, and when I begin making strides I also increase the difficulty. I’ve finally gotten the homemade fettuccine company-ready, but this time I decided to make ravioli.
I know deep down, though, that the eventual reward when I perfect the tougher feats will be totally worth it. For now, though, this trial was entirely delicious, even though I want to tweak my technique.
As I’ve done before, I used Vegan Dad’s recipe for fresh pasta dough. At this point, if you’ll allow me to flatter myself, the dough making is old hat. In other words, I found a good recipe and it’s not as difficult as I thought it was at first. Hoping for more success from Vegan Dad recipes, I looked into what he had to say about ravioli.
I knew I wanted to make spinach and mushroom ravioli, so I diced some mushrooms and cooked my mushrooms and spinach with lots of garlic, knowing that I wanted my filling mixture to be pretty dry before I started stuffing my pasta.
What I’d change next time, though, will be to roll the dough less thinly. As in, leave it more thick. Vegan Dad has the same Kitchen Aid pasta roller as I do, and he said he rolled his to setting 5 (on a scale with 1 being thickest and 8 being thinnest). If I had a more delicate filling, a thinner pasta might be better. That’s my only change.
I got a little creative. I started layering strips of pasta over the filling, but I ended up just folding it over. And in the end, I just twisted up the ends like precious purses.
But in the end, this didn’t affect the taste. Fresh pasta is one of my favorite treats. I’m not complaining at all about eating my practice batches.
I am happy that none of these little dumpling ravioli lost their contents. I did let them dry for a more than an hour before boiling them, so that might have helped.
I know this is a lot of work, but I enjoy it and I want to master pasta making. Thanks for coming along for my practice runs.
Great job! That's the one area I don't wanna touch..I heard it a lot of work..so congrats to you for doing this! Very inspirational for me to get up and try it as well!
ReplyDeleteYou did an excellent job! I have a pasta roller and have made homemade fettuccine a few times. I would love to try making my own ravioli, but I am afraid it's going to go horribly wrong!
ReplyDeleteSpinach Ravioli is my favorite and I own a pasta roller, just never took it out of the box. Maybe one day. Looks delicious!
ReplyDeleteThose look fantastic! Fresh pasta is one of my favorite things ever.
ReplyDeleteWow...those look and sound fantastic!! You did a great job! I want to try my hand at making homemade pasta some day.
ReplyDeleteYou are right fresh pasta just takes practice. I learned that extra kneading makes a big difference in the resilency of the dough. Filled pastas are the only things I ever use fresh pasta for actually. Next you will need to make some of the different shapes. ;-) I am sure you will get many ideas in Italy, I know I did.
ReplyDeleteAli
I didn't realize that you were in Cincinnati! Do you have any suggestions for eating there? We're coming down in October and any ideas would be great!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Tami, almost everything in Cincinnati is a qualified good *for Cincinnati*. At the top of my list would be Melt, a sandwich shop with a good Sunday brunch too. My favorite nice restaurant is Honey, and I always have a good time there. They usually have one vegan entree, but if you're going with another vegan, that can get a little boring. But they can usually work with you.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people in town like Green Dog Cafe, but I wasn't impressed. We do have one all-vegan restaurant, Loving Cafe. It's pretty good especially if you're interested in mock meats. Another favorite is Myra's Dionysus - lots of good soups and Greek/Middle Eastern style foods.
Other than that, I usually get Thai or veggie burgers when I go out. Or get a vegan pizza at Mac's. One place I'm interested in trying is Lucky John's Market, but I have not been there.
My top rec would be Melt, and also Park + Vine, which is our green/vegan general store. They are moving to a bigger space as of October 1 so that should be neat to see too.
The ravioli "purses" look adorable! They sorta look like flat dumplings! Are you going to try other stuffed foods like dumplings or empanadas next? ;
ReplyDelete