Recipe of the Week
Ravioli Dough
February 24, 2011

My parents gave me a hand-crank pasta machine complete with all of the attachments for Christmas in 2007. I couldn't wait to begin creating ravioli delicacies. I now use the dough to enrobe everything from smoked chicken concoctions to potato/gorgonzola mixtures. Your imagination is the only limit as to what can be placed in ravioli.

Ingredients:
*3 cups unbleached white flour
*½ teaspoon salt
*2 eggs (room temperature)
*½ cup warm water

Directions:
Sift the flour and salt together. Make sure they are totally incorporated.

Place the flour mixture on a cutting board or in a large bowl for easier clean-up. Make an indentation or "well" in the center of the flour large enough to hold the eggs.

Drop the eggs into the flour well and use your hand or a fork to break up the yolks and beat the eggs slightly.

Combine the eggs and flour together gradually, adding enough warm water to make a stiff dough.

Begin kneading the dough until it is smooth and elastic. The dough will be very stiff and difficult to work with at this point. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rest for 15 minutes before rolling it out.

Attach your pasta roller to the area you will be working and set it to the largest opening. This is position one (1) for my machine. Sprinkle the rollers with a little flour.

Pass a piece of the dough mixture through the machine turning the handle slowly. Repeat this operation 5-6 times folding the dough over each time. Sprinkle some flour on the middle of the dough if necessary.

When the dough has taken a regular shape, it is now ready to be rolled into the thin sheet that forms the ravioli. Do this by rolling the dough once only on setting two (2) than once only again on setting three (3.) Continue this process until you reach setting five or six on the regulating knob. You will need to sprinkle the dough with flour each time you run it through a thinner setting.

When you have reached the desired thinness, carefully brush any excess flour off of the dough sheet.

The dough is now ready to be formed into your favorite ravioli.