Ravioli over Steamed Spinach

For Shannon's birthday we went to Tucos in downtown Davis for lunch. I had some delicious ravioli and decided to shamelessly rip them off for a quick, easy post while simultaneously clearing out my fridge.

1 batch fresh pasta (see this post)
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 bunch spinach
1 whole egg
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Pasta Sauce (dealer's choice, I did tomatoes, shallots, sage, rosemary, oregano, and thyme.)
hard cheese for garnish
salt and pepper

This is going to be a technique heavy post and is really only relevant to people who have a pasta roller. If you've got any sense at all, you should probably be/become one of those people. Like now. We all set? Good.

Picking up where I left off in the first pasta post, you should have a chilled ball of dough. Cut that in half, then form the pieces. What we need to do is form it until it is squarish in shape and about 1/3 inch thick. Anything thicker won't fit into the machine.

Doesn't have to be perfect, heck it doesn't even have to be pretty. Make sure you use plenty of flour while forming it and take that disgusting fork out of frame before you start taking pictures. Gross. Run it through the machine at the biggest setting.

After you run it through the machine you will have a slightly thinner mess. Fold it over like a letter into thirds, then run through the machine again and again, lowering the size each time, until you reach the desired thickness, which is usually as thin as you can get it.

In my experience, you need three hands to work one of these things. The first hand should feed the pasta into the top, the second should turn the crank, and the third should guide the pasta out the bottom, watching carefully for snags. What happens is as the pasta gets thinner and thinner the flower gets more and more incorporated into the dough, which is good, and the dough appears to be more wet, which is bad. You need to flower the dough after every pass, or else the wet bits will get stuck on the metal rollers and its just a mess. Work slow, keep a ton of flower on hand, and watch for snags. Eventually you will get to the point where its so thin that no matter what you do it will catch. That is the point at which you should stop.

I usually end up with two completely different pieces of pasta, but that's fine. Cut them into sections you can manage, like so. I prefer to use my bench scrape for pasta cutting because it feels pretty awesome, but you can use a knife or a pizza cutter.

In a bowl mix the ricotta with the egg, lemon juice, salt and pepper. You can add pepper flakes here if you like or lemon zest or pretty much anything else.

Scope the filling with a teaspoon and add dollops just off-center to the pasta, spacing them about an inch apart.

Fold the pasta over the filling and press down. Starting from the folded side and working to the open edge, press down HARD on the space between the filling lumps. You want to get all the air out of the pasta so leave the front edge for last.

Most people use an egg wash to hold the pasta sheets together, but I've always just pressed the edges really really hard and it holds plenty fine. If you were using a less fresh or wet dough then maybe it would be helpful, but I really don't know.

Boil the pasta on a very low boil until the pasta floats, and even then give it another minute or so. Work in small batches.

While the pasta is working, in a pan steam the spinach until wilted and delicious. I recently lost a roommate, but gained a best friend, but also lost a handy vegetable steamer. What's a fellow to do, you might ask? This.

I put the spinach in a ramekin in a small amount of water and steamed with the lid closed. Worked pretty well, all things considered. Arrange the spinach on a plate, top with pasta and sauce, then serve!