Saturday, July 28, 2012

Mushroom Ravioli

It's been a while since I posted and this smelled so good as it was simmering I thought I better go get my camera!

I had some extra mushrooms that needed to be used so I decided to get a little fancy and make some homemade ravioli. Unless you regularly make your own noodles, this is pretty involved. You can cheat and buy egg roll wrappers, but I really didn't feel like going to the store (because let's face it, it's 12:30pm on a Saturday!) So if you have some time and patience, make the dough!

I looked at a lot of different recipes to start my brain. I didn't have everything for one recipe so I kind of got the basics and took off on my own for this one.

For the filling:
I took white button mushrooms (fresh) and chopped them up. I had about 1-1/4 cup chopped. I melted a whooping tablespoon of butter in the skillet and added the mushrooms. I added some onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Let me tell you, it smelled delicious! I then added about an 1/8 cup of red wine. You could probably use beef broth here but I had the wine and honestly, I just like cooking with it. Continue to saute until the liquid is reduced by about half.

I read a lot of recipes that used ricotta cheese (or a similar soft cheese) for the filling. I didn't have any so I used a little over a cup of mozzarella and somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 cup of shredded Parmesan. I put them both in the blender and then added the mushroom mix.













You will need to be patient with your blender. It would probably be smarter to use a food processor (note for next time!). I had to scrape the sides down often. It doesn't look pretty, but again it smells amazing.

For the dough: 
I took this straight from Cyn's Wild Mushroom Ravioli. Three cups of flour, 1/2t salt, 2 eggs, and 1/2c of water. I tried to be fancy and do this straight on the counter. Let me tell you what happened. I made a giant mess. Next time, I'll probably just use a bowl :-)

Knead the dough until smooth and let it rest about 15 minutes. Split it in half and roll it out to about 1/8" to 1/16". I don't have a rolling pin so I used my empty bottle of wine. It works just fine.

Once you roll out the dough, scoop about 1tsp of the mix out. I think I used closer to 1-1/2t-1T. Basically, it's up to you how big you want your ravioli to be!

Lay the other half of dough on top and push the seams together.

Use a pastry cutter (or a sharp knife, which is what I used) and cut the ravioli out. Make sure the seams are pressed together well. Let the ravioli dry about an hour and then it's up to you!

Cook it right then in some boiling water, toast them, or freeze them for later. I have no idea what kind of sauce I'm going to use. Probably something creamy. I can't imagine anything not working with these! Enjoy!