Pasta!

Pasta Dough

3 cups unbleached flour

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

2-3 Tablespoons water

1 Teaspoon salt

Combine flour, eggs, water and salt in a food processor and blend until mixture just begins to form a ball, adding more water drop by drop if dough is too dry. The dough should be firm and not sticky. Process for 15 seconds more to knead it. Transfer to floured surface and let stand, covered with a bowl, for 1 hour to relax the gluten.

Ravioli

filling

1 and 1/2 lb. ricotta

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup finely grated paremesan

1/4 cup finely chopped flat leaf parsely

1 and 1/4 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Tucker split the pasta dough into six pieces. He then rolled it out using our hand crank pasta machine to it's narrowest setting. Each sheet was cut in half crosswise and laid on the floured counter top and covered with a clean dish towel. He then dropped 2 tablespoon mounds of the filling 1 and 1/2 inches apart on the dough strip and brushed around each mound with an egg wash made of 1 large egg white beaten with 2 teaspoons of water. Then a second dough sheet was placed on top and he pressed down firmly around each mound, forcing out any air. Then he cut the ravioli apart into about 3 inch squares. He let the ravioli dry on floured baking sheets for about 30 minutes. The ravioli was boiled in a large pot of gently boiling salted water for about 6 minutes. We sauced them with a simple tomato sauce of canned tomatoes, oregano, garlic, onion, parsley and a bay leaf.

What a delicious meal we had.