How to make homemade ravioli

November 6, 11:23 AMBerkeley Cooking ExaminerKaren Yencich

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Pumpkin ravioli with sage and browned butter

If you can make your own pasta, you can make your own ravioli: true or false?

Could go either way. Pasta, after the first try, is pretty straightforward. Ravioli, on the other hand, can be tricky; as soon as you’ve addressed one disaster, something else goes wrong.

This is, in fact, good news; a problem anticipated is a problem solved. This is probably an incomplete list of potential disasters (ravioli are always devising new ways to thwart you) but it will keep you ahead of the game:

They fall apart when you cook them. There are three fixes here, the first two are essential, the third is simply good practice.

1. Brush the edges with beaten egg or water before you seal them, and take extra time to pinch the edges together firmly. By the way, Elmer’s glue also works; brush it on as you would beaten egg or water. It is flavorless and non-toxic, but most guests don’t want to know about it.
2. Let the pasta dry for at least an hour before you cook it—the pasta should be dry to the touch before it goes into the cooking water.
3. Don’t use a deep pot of boiling water; use a shallow pan of simmering water. Ravioli don’t need to tumble to cook properly. Lower the dried ravioli with the sealed and pinched edges (like I told you) into simmering water. They’ll sink, then float to the top when they’re fully cooked.

The ravioli take forever to cook, and even then, the dough is tough. Your dough is too thick. It’s tempting when cooking from scratch to go for an attractive, rustic look. Even though fresh pasta cooks quickly, this is a poor tactic with ravioli. If you are using an Atlas pasta maker, the thickness “5” is perfect—that’s about 1/8-inch thick if you’re using a rolling pin.

Stupid uncooked ravioli stick to everything. After they’re filled and formed, lay the uncooked ravioli on well-floured (really, use lots, go nuts) sheets of waxed paper to dry. If they’re sitting around for longer than an hour, you can set the trays in the refrigerator. When you’re ready to cook them, they’ll be sturdy enough to pat (or brush) the excess flour off, or, it will simply rinse off as the ravioli cook.

You don’t need special equipment to make ravioli. All you need is a 2-inch cookie cutter, a water glass and a well-floured surface. Ravioli trays are handy, but not essential, and the ravioli-maker attachment to the pasta machine, although it looks cool, is simply diabolical.

So, to review: brush, pinch, dry, simmer. Thin dough. Lots of flour. Keep it simple. Watch the slide show.

Now, check out the Today Show recipe for Pumpkin Ravioli. It uses amaretti cookies in the filling and is possibly the best ravioli I have ever made or eaten. And by all means, go to the trouble of making the browned butter sauce it is served with; it makes the dish.