Grown-Up Playdough: Homemade Cheese Ravioli

I am a lucky subscriber to all of the America’s Test Kitchen Empire’s publications and I frequently rely on their recipes and articles to improve my home cooking.  This past April, a recipe for Three-Cheese Ravioli with Brown Butter-Pine Nut Sauce tantalized me, despite knowing it would be an all-afternoon project that I’d have to reserve for a weekend.  I could taste the results just by looking at the picture, and I had to have it for myself.  It quickly became my most popular Instagram post ever, so I have a suspicion you all agree!  If you act fast, you may be able to access the recipe for free through the Cook’s Illustrated Instagram link, but I think it’s worth subscribing regardless.

The Dough

I typically make pasta with my trusty KitchenAid attachment, but this recipe was unique in that it specifically recommended homemade pasta without a machine to help roll out the dough.  When I’ve made ravioli in the past (I have a fabulous filling made of several types of mushrooms that I ought to share someday), I’ve used the machine but found the squares incredibly difficult to shape, as the width of the dough is too small to fold in half.  I also always mess up the folding-over process and end up with wonky half-moon blobs that taste great but aren’t great to look at.

This recipe starts differently than my usual pasta — typically, I just use soft flour like Caputo Doppio Zero and a combination of whole eggs and yolks.  This recipe uses AP flour, which is slightly higher in protein for added strength, and a combination of whole eggs, egg yolks (don’t throw out the whites), and olive oil to provide pliability without sacrificing the pasta’s ability to encase a filling.

Most pasta these days is mixed in a food processor, which is true of this recipe.  If I’m using my KitchenAid to roll the dough, then I use the mixer with the dough hook instead (although that puts a lot of strain on the gears, so I have to knead by hand quite a bit.  Or, rather, Hubtastic is recruited to knead by hand quite a bit).  However, since this is a pasta rolled without a machine, the food processor would do quite nicely for both mixing and kneading the dough.

All ingredients are dumped in together, with the option to add a teensy bit of water or flour if the dough is too dry or too wet – it should be soft, springy, and just a little bit tacky, but not so tacky that some sticks to your fingers. You can’t test this just by looking at it, so (carefully — there’s a blade in there) actually get your tactile sense engaged. 

Plop the cohesive dough ball on the counter (you shouldn’t need flour to keep it from sticking) and knead by hand for a few seconds, just like a little kid playing with playdough.  Or like an adult playing with therapeutic dough, which is really just playdough in a spa-like container.  This, in my mind, is far superior, because after you’re finished playing, you get to eat it (and for those of you who ate playdough as a kid, I promise the pasta is much more palatable).  Wrap it up and let it rest at room temp for about an hour.

The Filling

My favorite aspect of this process is that they specifically recommend wiping out the food processor, rather than washing, before using it to make the filling.  Fewer dishes!  Make the filling while the dough is resting to save some time and store it in the food processor bowl in the fridge for the remainder of the rest period.

The formula couldn’t be simpler: one cup each of a soft cheese (ricotta, goat, or well-drained small curd cottage cheese), a melty cheese (fontina, gruyere, asiago, and the like), and a hard cheese (grated parmesan, pecorino, etc.), plus one egg, salt, and pepper.  Process until smooth.  Use the down time to clean up and prep a large, flat work surface for rolling and assembly.

The Assembly

Once rested, the dough should really, truly feel like commercial Play-Doh.  Soft, easy to work with, a little springy, but not at all sticky.  Divide into 6 pieces and aim to get 6 ravioli out of each section.  Flatten each piece into a roughly-straight-sided rectangle, then roll until it is about 3 times as long as it is wide and as thin as you can get it by hand.  I only got 25 ravioli in total, I think because I didn’t roll out enough… should’ve gotten Hubtastic to do it instead.  If the dough starts springing back and refusing to stretch, let it rest for a few minutes while you start rolling another piece.  Flour the dough to prevent sticking, but use as little flour as you can.

At this point, I diverged from the Cook’s Illustrated process.  Rather than cutting individual strips for each ravioli, I split each sheet in half length-wise.  I spooned about a tablespoon, maybe a bit more, of filling in equal blobs across one half of the strip.

I brushed a little egg white (leftover from all the egg yolks earlier) in a square around each blob to seal the pasta.  I flipped the matching strip over the filling and pressed down to create little mounds.

Tip: Seal the long edge nearest to you first, then carefully use a finger or two to divide the mounds and seal between them.  Press as much air out as you can before sealing the long edge in the back.  Air means bloating and potentially bursting before the pasta is cooked.

At this point, you could divide each square using a bench scraper or knife and store them on a baking sheet until all 6 sets are done.  For a true ravioli experience, though, use a scalloped edge to cut evenly sized ruffled edges around each center.  Gather up the scraps to roll out and make a few more ravioli (these will be tougher because of the extra manipulation and flour, but still delicious- I used them as testers in the water for cook time and as a secret chef’s snack).

Finishing Touches

Once all the ravioli were ready to go, I put a very large pot of salted water on to boil.  (If you plan to make all 36 right away, you may want to boil in batches.  These will freeze, separated on a cookie sheet, very nicely and can be boiled straight from frozen.  You can toss them in a freezer bag to save space once they are rock-solid.)

While the water came to a boil, I put a whole stick (!!!) of salted butter, preferably good-quality butter, in a saute pan to gently melt over medium heat.  After a few minutes, the solids started to brown, but the pasta wasn’t done yet so I turned off the heat.  It takes the ravioli about 10-13 minutes to cook.

Once the ravioli were drained and waiting in a bowl, I fired up the butter again to heat through and finish browning – this is no place to get distracted as you’ll end up with blackened butter shockingly fast.  Right as the butter reached toasty golden, I turned off the heat and added a small handful of pine nuts and some ripped parsley per diner.  The nuts toasted in the residual heat.  Taste and season with salt or pepper if you deem it necessary – I didn’t find it needed anything.  I poured the sauce over the pasta, shaking a bit to distribute, and immediately devoured multiple servings.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had a more perfect meal.  The tangy and pungent cheese, smooth and springy pasta, fatty and salty butter, and the crunchy, toasty pine nuts worked as well — no, better — than I’d suspected.  Totally worth an afternoon playing with grown-up playdough.