The first mention of ravioli seems to have been at the fourteenth-century household of Francesco di Marco Datini, merchant of Prato, who describes pasta pockets stuffed with meat and (during Lent) with herbs and cheese. One of the first ravioli shops in America, Bruno Ravioli, was started by Bruno Cavalli in 1905 in Hackensack, New Jersey. Ravioli is less popular on Italian American menus today, but in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s it was all the rage. For Italians, ravioli is a Sunday meal, more common in the north of Italy, where fresh pasta is made, than in the south, where dry pasta is used more. Everybody loves the sense of accomplishment of making ravioli, stuffing the little pasta pockets with savory and delicious fillings. I think one of the major ingredients in filling ravioli is love. When the family gathers at the table and a steaming platter of ravioli arrives, there are always sounds of exaltation. This is an easy recipe, made with readily available sausage and ricotta, a delicious combination. Simple marinara or butter sauce will be the perfect dressing.
Recipe information
Yield
makes about 2 dozen, serving 4 people
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Pulse together the onion, celery, and carrot in a food processor until finely chopped, to make a pestata. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot, scrape in the vegetables and cook until they begin to soften, about 3 to 4 minutes.
Step 2
Pour the white wine over the sausage in a medium bowl, and crumble the sausage into small pieces with your fingers. Add the sausage and wine to the skillet with the vegetables, breaking up the sausage as finely as possible with a wooden spoon. Sauté until the sausage is completely cooked through, about 4 to 5 minutes. Scrape into a bowl to cool. When the sausage is completely cooled, stir in the ricotta, grated cheese, and parsley.
Step 3
Roll the dough: Cut it into four equal pieces. (You could roll the dough out with a rolling pin, but a small Imperia pasta machine is not expensive; it rolls the dough out in even strips and makes ravioli making so much easier.) Flatten a piece of dough into a rectangle, approximately 2 inches by 2 inches, and roll through the widest setting on the pasta machine. Fold this rectangle of dough like a letter, and roll through again. Repeat the rolling and folding a few more times, to knead and smooth the dough. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough.
Step 4
Switch to the next-narrowest setting on the machine. Roll a dough strip through, short end first. Repeat with the remaining dough strips. Continue this process with narrower settings, now rolling each strip only once through each setting, until you’ve gotten to the next-to-last setting and the dough strips are about as wide as the machine (6 inches).
Step 5
Lay one strip out on a floured counter, and place a heaping teaspoon of filling at about 4-inch intervals down the center of the strip (you will get about six or seven large ravioli per strip). Brush around the filling with water, fold the strip of dough over the fillings, the edges touching evenly, and seal the edges by pressing lightly. Using a serrated pastry cutter or pizza cutter, cut the ravioli evenly between the fillings into rectangles. Repeat with remaining dough and filling.
Step 6
Keep the ravioli on a baking sheet lined with a clean kitchen towel, and covered, until you are ready to cook them; up to 2 or 3 hours is fine. To cook the ravioli, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Drop the ravioli into the pot one by one, stirring with a wooden spoon periodically so they do not stick to the bottom.
Step 7
Have a sauté pan with the bubbling sauce ready to dress the ravioli. Once the ravioli are in the boiling water, cook for 3 minutes, then fish them out with a spider or slotted spoon. Drain them, and set them in the sauce. Stir gently to coat the ravioli with sauce. When ready to serve, toss some grated cheese over the ravioli plate, and spoon the remaining sauce on top.
notes
Step 8
You can serve these with a simple marinara and some grated Grana Padano or sautéed with butter and sage and some grated Grana Padano.
Step 9
If you want to freeze the ravioli: Once you have set them on a lined baking sheet, cover with a film of plastic wrap and set in the freezer for 2 or 3 hours, till frozen. Gently collect the frozen ravioli, set them flat in a ziplock bag, and lay the bag flat in a sealed plastic container. They will last in the freezer for a month or more.
