Mama Mia: Homemade Pasta

I went shopping in Soho yesterday to continue the never-ending search for a pair of shoes. I detest shopping. After it started pouring cold rain, my mood was made worse. I ducked into Dean and Deluca to see if I could pick up something fun, and of course, left with a smile on my face, and project materials in my bag for some homemade ravioli and sauce.

What really inspired this was seeing wonton wrappers (prepared squares of dough for making ravioli or wontons), which I had never used before, always convincing myself that if I didn’t make the dough by hand, I wasn’t really making homemade pasta. I guess I still feel that way but do have a new respect for the process. Mainly because, even when buying ready pasta dough, the project of making homemade ravioli is still a pain in the ass.

I knew I had dried wild mushrooms in my kitchen as well as ricotta cheese left over from a previous meal so I was going to do that up with a pomadora sauce, which I have never made before.

The project was a success, but the only thing that got in the way was my lack of self control. I really wanted to stuff the shiv outta these raviolis, and time and time again, when I was sealing them up, cheese was splushing out. Even though I knew my error, I did it over and over again. I think maybe I’m just a fat ass.

And lastly, before I shut the hell up and get on with the recipe, I found that making tortalini, albeit, humungous ones, were easier to do than ravioli. I know, doesn’t seem right, but probably because I was able to stuff more of the flavor crystals into the torts, making it easier to fold them bad boys.

In the end, I ended up with 12 large cheese ravioli and 35 large wild mushroom and cheese tortalini. Eaten on the same plate with some pasta sauce.

Here we go.

Ricotta and Mozzarella Cheese Mixture

8 oz of ricotta cheese
4 oz of fresh salted mozzarella, cut into small cubes
3 tbl of fresh parsley, chopped well
salt and pepper to taste
wonton wrappers
egg white for sealing
cornmeal for dusting

Combine the ricotta, mozz, parsley, salt and pepper into a mixing bowl and mix well.

Wild Mushroom Mixture

8 oz of ricotta cheese
4 oz of fresh salted mozzarella, cut into small cubes
8 oz of dried mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste
wonton wrappers
egg white for sealing
cornmeal for dusting

Add 1 cup of boiling water to dried mushrooms and cover air tight for 25 minutes. Allow more time if they are this variety, less if they are a softer variety, like a portabello or shitake. Remove from water and squeeze well. Reserve the newly created mushroom broth for another use. Chop the shrooms well and then saute with a guilty amount of butter for about 5 minutes. Lay out to cool.

When the mushrooms are cooled, mix well with cheeses, salt and pepper.

Foldin Em Up

Dust your work area with a bit of cornmeal, and place a wanton wrapper in the center with a corner away from you. Add about a teaspoon (only a teaspoon, see above re: fat ass) of cheesy goodness to the center of the wrapper. Brush egg white on two sides of the exposed wrapper. For ravioli, fold and press the edges lightly with a fork. For tortalini, place slightly more mixture into the center, fold in half to make a triangle, grab ends and fold around so the corners touch each other and glue with egg. Make sure all the edges are sealed well.

Place prepared pasta on a cornmeal-dusted cookie sheet. Continue to make more and more until you get tired or run out of stuff. If you aren’t eating right away, dust well with cornmeal, wrap tightly and refrigerate. Will last about 2 days if kept well.

To cook, boil salted and oiled water in a deep frying pan. Gently add pasta and cook till they float – about 3 to 4 minutes. Grab with a slotted spoon and place directly on plate or serving dish with sauce, butter or olive oil.

I’m not going to lie to you. I did not like the wild mushrooms in this dish. Next time, I’ll use a different dried shroom like portabello or shitake. These were just far too woody for my liking.

Saucin

So, I had never made my own sauce before, or if I have, it was entirely unmemorable. Again, creating a good sauce is about self-control, which I am finding I have none of. The longer you can let this sauce slowly bubble on your stove with out meddling, the better it’s going to be. You heard all those stories about the pots of gravy going at it for like, days. It’s totally true.

My ingredients were mo simple and cut all chunky to create a “country” style. From here on, when I use the term “county style” I mean, ugly. I knew that the ravioli and torts were going to look all country style, so I thought I would do the same with the sauce and let big chunks of flavor pop out.

(Oh and, I know I called this pomodoro before, but that was because I thought it was going to come out all plainish and a bit boring, but in the end it had mad flavor. I’ll probs call this marinara next time.)

Sauce

28 oz of organic chopped tomatoes from a box
5 huge garlic cloves, minimally and roughly chopped
half an onion, which ever color you prefer, I used red only cause it’s what I had in the house
5 leaves of basil, roughly chopped. Use dried if you want, but I’m pretending to be a gardner and have a fresh basil plant on my fire escape. If you use dried, I don’t know how much to put in… Any one know?
2 tsp of dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Heat olive oil in a heavy sauce pan. Throw onions in and continuously stir till almost translucent. Add garlic. Cook for another minute. Add tomatoes. Add oregano. Twenty minutes later, add basil. (Honestly, I only added it later cause I forgot.) Bring to a simmer, cover, reduce heat to as low as you can. Cover and walk away.

I let this sit for about 2 hours. What resulted was a smokey, thick, chunky, flavorful, tangy sauce which was MOPPED by R. Mopped, I tell ya.

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