No turkey for us at Christmas!  Turkey is strictly for Thanksgiving around here.  We Italians make pasta for the Christmas holiday – spaghetti for Christmas Eve with shrimp in vinegar and homemade raviolis in meat sauce (meatballs, sausage & beef) for Christmas Day.

My grandparents on my dad’s side are Italian.  My mom is Irish, but she learned how to cook all my dad’s favorite meals from his mother when my parents were dating and the lessons continued when they were newly married.  My dad was in college by that time.  While he was studying on the weekends, my mom got cooking lessons from Nona.  (See my post “Too Much Turkey!” for Nona’s quick sauce recipe.) This is the recipe my mom wrote down for raviolis from watching Nona, because Nona did not use written recipes. The dishes Nona made were learned from her mother & mother-in-law and it was all done by trial and error and knowing what it should look, feel & taste like, not by measuring things out precisely.

On a recent trip to visit us, my mom (known as “Gabu” by her grandkids) gave us all a lesson in ravioli making. We had the whole group involved which is how Eric likes to cook.  My nephew Nickolas mixed the filling for the raviolis; Eric & Kelly made the dough and Nickolas helped turning the dough into strips; Gilbert and Andrew filled and shaped the raviolis.  As usual, I had the shopping duties in advance of the cooking, set up of the ingredients & equipment and clean-up.  Gabu oversaw the entire operation, giving advice and instructions. Papa watched the football game.  Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

Meat & Cheese Raviolis

DOUGH

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 glass warm water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

FILLING

• 1 pound ricotta
• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 2 eggs
• parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon salt & pepper
• zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan

You will need a pasta machine which takes balls of dough and flattens them into strips.  It also helps to have a ravioli wheel which cuts individual raviolis apart in a zigzag.

To make the dough: beat the eggs with the water. Add the salt and the flour. Stir and knead the ingredients together in a bowl. Continue to add flour until the dough is not sticky. Cover the bowl with a towel to keep the dough moist for 10-15 minutes, until it is slightly drier but not yet crusty. Knead the dough again on a pastry board that is well floured.

While the dough is resting make the filling.

To make the filling: brown the meat then pour off the grease and crumble the meat by hand. Mix the rest of the ingredients into the meat until well combined.  This is best done by hand.

Set the filling aside and cut off a small fist sized piece of dough.

Run the dough through a well-floured pasta machine.  Start with the widest setting on your machine running it through that setting twice.  Move it to the next widest setting and run the dough through 2 more times.  Repeat the process with a middle range setting.  Make sure the dough machine remains well floured to keep the dough from sticking.  If the dough rips or gets folded over in the process it can be run through the machine again.  Lay the dough strip on a floured pastry board.

Put one teaspoon of filling every 2 inches on half of the dough strip.

Fold over & make individual “pillows” around filling.

Cut apart individual raviolis with a ravioli wheel and seal the edges with a fork. The raviolis can be cooked immediately or frozen at this point.

To freeze them, place them on floured cookie sheets with room between each ravioli, until they are frozen solid, then they can be stored in plastic freezer bags, being careful not to break them.

Cook the raviolis for 4-8 minutes in boiling water if they are fresh or for 8-12 minutes if they were frozen. They will float to the top when done, after approximately 5-10 minutes.

Extra dough can be used for spaghetti or linguine.  Extra filling can be used to make stuffed shells with purchased large pasta shells.  Nona was very good at this – she never had “extra” dough, when the filling was gone she had all the dough she needed for making the spaghetti for Christmas Eve dinner!

Merry Christmas, Italian style!  ~Linda

Meat & Cheese Raviolis

DOUGH

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 glass warm water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

FILLING

• 1 pound ricotta
• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 2 eggs
• parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon salt & pepper
• zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan

You will need a pasta machine which takes balls of dough and flattens them into strips.  It also helps to have a ravioli wheel which cuts individual raviolis apart in a zigzag.

To make the dough: beat the eggs with the water. Add the salt and the flour. Stir and knead the ingredients together in a bowl. Continue to add flour until the dough is not sticky. Cover the bowl with a towel to keep the dough moist for 10-15 minutes, until it is slightly drier but not yet crusty. Knead the dough again on a pastry board that is well floured.

While the dough is resting make the filling.

To make the filling: brown the meat then pour off the grease and crumble the meat by hand. Mix the rest of the ingredients into the meat until well combined.  This is best done by hand. Set the filling aside and cut off a small fist sized piece of dough.

Run the dough through a well-floured pasta machine.  Start with the widest setting on your machine running it through that setting twice.  Move it to the next widest setting and run the dough through 2 more times.  Repeat the process with a middle range setting.  Make sure the dough machine remains well floured to keep the dough from sticking.  If the dough rips or gets folded over in the process it can be run through the machine again.  Lay the dough strip on a floured pastry board.

Put one teaspoon of filling every 2 inches on half of the dough strip. Fold over & make individual “pillows” around filling. Cut apart individual raviolis with a ravioli wheel and seal the edges with a fork. The raviolis can be cooked immediately or frozen at this point.

To freeze them, place them on floured cookie sheets with room between each ravioli, until they are frozen solid, then they can be stored in plastic freezer bags, being careful not to break them.

Cook the raviolis for 4-8 minutes in boiling water if they are fresh or for 8-12 minutes if they were frozen. They will float to the top when done, after approximately 5-10 minutes.