Pasta can actually be MADE!

After much consideration, and plenty of bugging from Vilmali to spend some time together cooking something, we decided to get together to make pasta. From Scratch(tm)!

The mechanics of it are easy enough, so we embarked on a journey with no return: that of making pasta from scratch. It's kind of a make or break deal: either you hate it and go back to cooking dried pasta, with the experience serving as a Stop sign whenever you wish to do something for yourself, or you love it and get all obsessed with making pasta every week until you perfect the recipe. This is not true at all, but, hey, I have plenty of space to fill down here in this blog!

What started as eagerness ("we're making pasta! this is going to be sooo cool!") ended up with sore arms, full bellies and a feeling of "when is this going to be over!? grrr!". It's fairly simple, though; just mix flour, water, eggs, whatever else your recipe asks for. Form a ball, roll, cut, be happy. Although this tells you pretty much how it goes, the reality is more crude than that.

To make the actual pasta, we used 2 cups of all-purpose flour and 3 eggs. You mix that in a bowl for a while until you can form a ball. If it's dry, add water; if it's sticky, add flour. Sprinkle some flour in your hands and knead the dough with your hands until the consistency is smooth. Cover and leave there for half an hour while you make some filling for the pasta and some sauce.

Vilmali wanted cheese-filled ravioli, Victor wanted spinach-filled ravioli. Instead of doing the traditional ricotta-spinash, we made them separate. For the cheese, we used ricotta, of course, and here's the list (measures are just an estimate):

1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1 egg yolk

In a very small saucepan, melt the butter. As soon as it's melted, remove from the heat and add the garlic. Stir for a few seconds and remove them before they fully cook. Put them in a mortar, along with the butter, and mince them. Add the rest of the ingredients and let it rest.

Now for the spinach filling:

2 cups fresh spinach (frozen works too)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup onion, chopped
3/4 cup mushrooms, chopped
salt, to taste

This is easy, wash the spinach well and cook them while damp in a small saucepan until they start losing their leafy shape. Remove them. Cook the onions and mushrooms in a bit of olive oil. When softened, add the spinach and some salt. This should be enough.

You can actually mix both types of filling and there you have it: ricotta-spinach ravioli, but we wanted them separate.

Now you need the tomato sauce:

1 can of diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
2 tablespoons of basil (either fresh or dried works)
1/4 cup red wine

Heat the olive oil and add the onions and carrots. Cook until soft, then add the tomatoes and some salt. When it starts boiling, add the wine. If your basil is dried, now would be a good time to add it; if it's fresh, wait until the sauce is a bit thicker and add it at the end. Keep it warm while you make the ravioli!

Having fun? Back to the pasta!

Grab a piece of the dough and flatten it using a dry surface and a rolling pin. If you have a pasta machine, you probably don't need ME to explain to YOU how to make pasta, eh? Anyway, I used a rolling pin. Keep rolling, fold it, roll, fold, roll and keep rolling (without further folding) until the pasta sheet is translucent (until you can almost see your hand through, dummy). Cut it into rectangles that are twice as long as they are wide. Make it up if you don't get it: the idea is to put some filling in the center, then fold that piece of pasta over itself, resulting in a nice square of pasta. Use the useful end of a fork to press the edges so that there are no open spaces left. It might be good to moist with your finger around the pasta, where it's supposed to seal with itself.

However you do it, you should end up with something resembling a... raviol? raviole? wtf is the singular for ravioli?

Either way, repeat until you have a bunch of ravioli. Boil them in a large pot with A LOT of water. Maybe you noticed that there's no salt in the pasta dough? Well, that's how it's supposed to be... the salt is added to the water. Use plenty of water with a generous amount of salt. Boil for 3-5 minutes. Drain and serve. Pour some of that tomato sauce on top of them.

Yum! Fresh ravioli for you! Buon appetito! (next time I'll get a pasta machine, promise)

Victor recommends: