Forearms like an Italian grandmother...

I love Italian food and enjoy making pasta from scratch, so I decided to make ravioli with a ricotta and chanterelle mushroom filling.  I got some lovely mushrooms in my produce box that were locally foraged (eat your hearts out, hipster foodies).  After some mistakes and a major arm workout, we had these...

 

Pasta (from the book Urban Italian by Andrew Carmellini)

*Note- that's one of my favorite cookbooks.  Awesome, awesome food.

6 cups of 00 flour (that's flour that has been ground-up finer than regular all-purpose flour).  I haven't been able to find it locally, so I ordered it from King Arthur flour.  It's called their "Italian-Style" flour.
7 whole eggs
5 egg yolks
1 Tbs salt
2 Tbs olive oil

I know...that's a lot of eggs.  But this makes about 50 raviolis.  We had enough for dinner for six (with no side dish).  These are hearty, substantial raviolis.

Combine the flour and salt, then add the eggs and olive oil and mix into a ball.  And here's where I made my mistake...I've been keeping my flour in the freezer which sounds weird, but it makes your flour last longer and it keeps any sort of creepy-crawlies away...however, I needed to let things get to room temperature before I decided "Oh hey, let's make ravioli!"  This resulted in really cold dough that was almost impossible to knead.  I was really worried that the ravioli would be disgusting because of my stupid, cold dough error...but amazingly, the ravioli was just fine.

Once everything is combined, knead the dough for a bit until it is smooth and elastic.  Then cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours (overnight is even better).  Then you can start rolling out the dough.  I roll mine into nice, big rectangles.  Then I add the filling down the length of the dough, fold the dough in half, and use a ravioli stamp to seal the dough into nice circles.  (There's a great tutorial here: Ravioli Tutorial). 

After they've been filled, boil until they rise to the top of the pot...about 6 minutes, but this will vary depending on how thickly you've rolled your noodles.  So, just take one out and test.  You'll know if you need to go longer.


Filling

3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Tbs butter
2 Cups of chanterelle mushrooms, chopped finely
1 Tbs lemon zest
1 Container ricotta cheese
1/4 Cup of parmesan cheese, grated
salt & pepper

Heat the butter on the stove over medium heat, add the garlic and cook until softened.  Add mushrooms, lemon zest, and salt & pepper to taste.  Saute until mushrooms are tender and have released their water content.

Let the mushroom mixture cool, then mix with the ricotta and parmesan.  All ready to stuff the ravioli!


Lemon-Parmesan Cream Sauce

2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs butter
1/2 Cup of cream
1/4 Cup of parmesan, grated
Juice of a lemon
salt & pepper

In the same pan you cooked the filling, add the butter and garlic and cook until the garlic has softened.  Add cream, lemon juice, and parmesan and simmer until the sauce has reduced.  Add salt & pepper to taste.  Fresh chopped parsley would be wonderful in this as well.  Spoon the sauce over your finished ravioli. 

Save some for lunch for the next day, because it is even better on day 2.  The mushrooms are awesome and the lemon gives it just enough acid to balance all the cheese...and cream...and butter...and more cheese.