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It’s World Pasta Month, which celebrates a food that hits close to home with me as a cook and a food enthusiast. Pasta was the first food I learned how to cook, from the box and from scratch. As my expertise grew with this Italian staple, I began to formulate my own take on traditional pasta dishes.

That’s how this recipe came about. I was inspired by the richness and satisfaction of a poached egg, and wanted to explore similar textures and flavors as a pasta dish. This ravioli al’ uovo, or egg yolk ravioli, accomplishes just that. When you slice into the perfect al dente ravioli, the egg yolk runs all over the plate, kind of like an eggs benedict. But the cheese filling and mushroom bolognese that I incorporated into this dish give both a flavor boost and new dimension to a ravioli that I want to share with you.

This recipe will make enough dough for about eight large ravioli so adjust your ratios according to your desired serving size.

Making the Dough:
Making the proper ravioli requires a time commitment to get the dough just right. That means not rushing the kneading process, allowing the dough enough time to chill and rolling it out to the proper thickness. Ravioli is about patience, because trust me, it will be worth it once the egg yolk runs perfectly out of the center.

To begin the dough, I start out with 2 ¼ cups of semolina flour (all-purpose is also fine, I’ve used both). Place the flour into a bowl or leave it on the countertop and make a round well in the center to place your cracked eggs. Crack 3 whole eggs into the well and then add 3 more egg yolks. Add a small drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of grated nutmeg and ½ teaspoon of kosher salt to the egg mixture and begin incorporating using a fork. Side note: This will make enough dough for about eight large ravioli so adjust your ratios according to your desired serving size.

Once the liquid mixture is thoroughly combined, begin to slowly mix in the flour — you can use your opposite hand to do this simultaneously — as you continuously beat together the eggs. Once the floor has made the liquid mixture has too thick to stir, incorporate the rest of the flour — using a bench scraper if you have one — into that mixture until a shaggy dough forms (there will likely be extra flour and that’s fine — just reserve it for later).

On a clear workspace, form your dough into a ball and begin to knead, folding the dough on top of itself repeatedly for about five to seven minutes. If you find that your dough is on the more moist side, add some of that extra flour to it, and if it’s too dry and cracking, add a few tablespoons of water until it homogenizes.

The dough will be ready when it springs back into shape willingly after you press into it with your finger. Once it reaches that consistency, divide the dough in half, shape it into a disc, cover it in plastic wrap and place it into the fridge for an hour.

Making the Filling:
Make the filling as the dough chills. In a large mixing bowl, add a pound of ricotta cheese, ¼ cup of parmesan cheese, ¼ cup of basil leaves, 2 tablespoons of finely chopped sage leaves and chives, 2 minced garlic cloves and the juice and zest of half a lemon. Add about a tablespoon of kosher salt and begin to mix with a gloved hand until everything is incorporated. Then crack 1 egg into the bowl to bind the filling and continue to mix by hand. Transfer the mixture into a large plastic bag and set aside in the refrigerator.

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Making the Sauce
You can make this at any point during the cooking process since it’s easy to reheat once cooled off in the fridge, but if your dough still has enough time to chill, you can get started on this step since it can be prep-intensive.

Unlike a traditional bolognese, your finely chopped 1 ½ pounds of combined baby bella and shiitake mushrooms will act as the meat, giving the sauce a much needed umami boost.

Then, in a large saucepan set over medium-high heat, drizzle in some olive oil, 1 finely chopped carrot (peeled), celery rib and yellow onion. Stir occasionally so the vegetables don’t brown but rather soften and slightly caramelize. Then add your chopped mushrooms and a few sprigs of fresh thyme, cooking until the mushrooms begin to brown and wilt.

After about 5 minutes, stir in 3 tablespoons of tomato paste and mix until fully incorporated. Then, add a cup of whole milk and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Adjust the heat until the mixture begins to simmer and reduce the sauce until thickened, which should take between 20-25 minutes stirring occasionally. If you find that the sauce is too thick, stir in about a half cup of water, and let the sauce simmer for another 3-5 minutes.

Assembling the raviolo:
This is where a pasta roller will come in handy. Tightly secure it to your countertop and make sure it starts out on the highest thickness setting. Before adding your dough to the roller, add flour to the counter, remove both halves of the dough from the refrigerator and using a rolling pin, roll it out until it’s about ½ an inch thick. Then fold one side of it to the center of the rolled out dough and to the same with the other side, and using the roller, flatten the dough back out to that ½ inch thickness.

This process is called laminating the dough, which helps with the pasta’s gluten development. Repeat this process two more times before beginning to feed the dough through the pasta roller. Every time you do this, lower the thickness level by one until you’ve rolled the dough out to the second thinnest setting.

Between your two discs of pasta dough, you should now have two long sheets to work with. At this point, you can remove the ricotta filling out of the fridge and slice the very end of the plastic bag off to pipe the cheese onto the dough. Make sure you don’t cut too big of hole out of the bag so you have optimal control over how much you end up piping onto the dough.

Spaced roughly an inch and a half apart, pipe circles of the filling onto one sheet of the dough, leaving a large enough slot for the egg yolk you’re going to place in the middle. Before draping your other sheet of pasta dough on top of the one containing the filling, brush water over all of the exposed areas of the dough surrounding the flour. That will help the ravioli contain its shape once it’s being boiled.

Now you can place the second sheet of pasta over top, making sure to merge the dough together where there is no filling. Using either a bench scraper, a round cookie cutter or a pizza cutter, separate the individual ravioli’s into either square or round shapes and place them into a large pot of boiling, generously salted water and let it cook for 4 minutes.

Plating:
With about 1-2 minutes left on the ravioli’s cook time, begin to heat up your sauce if it’s not already hot and place a thin layer of it onto the plate. Then, once the ravioli is finished, place them onto a paper towel to soak up some of the moisture and then add to the sauce. Top the sauce with your desired amount of ravioli and grated parmesan on top of each one, and top everything off with a little bit of finely chopped basil. Make sure the first thing you do is slice the ravioli in half and watch the egg yolk ooze out onto the plate, adding even more richness to the sauce, making for the perfect bite of pasta.

Published on October 23, 2022 at 10:35 pm

Contact Alex: ahcirino@syr.edu