In our family, the most sacred food of all is one specific type of ravioli – the one my grandmother makes at Christmas time. Making this ravioli the way my Grandmother has all her life is a labor-intensive process involving a wooden rolling pin, a heavy board, and a lot of elbow grease and time. This year I was tasked with ravioli making for Christmas, and I felt the need to really impress Grammy with my pasta skills. 

 


The only problem with the ravioli recipe is that the recipe does not actually exist. When I pressed my mother for the recipe, the phone conversation between Maine and New York went something like this: 

Me: “So, can you please send me Grammy’s ravioli filling recipe?”
Mom: “Actually, nobody has ever written it down. The only documentation we have is a VHS video we made of the process during the Reagan administration.” 
Me: “So the filling has parmigiano reggiano cheese, bread crumbs from a loaf of Italian bread… what else?
Mom: “Chicken stock, nutmeg, and egg.”
Me: “Egg? I don’t think that there is egg in there.”
Mom: “Yes, there is definitely egg.” 

Me: “And what measurements should I use?” 
Mom: “Well, it’s supposed to be sort of dense.”
Me: “So… like what, one cup of each?”
Mom: “I’m not really sure. She [Grammy] just does it by sight.”

Me: “can you ballpark it?”
Mom: “You should be able to make a ball out of it.”
Me: “A dry, firm ball or a wet, gooey ball?”
Mom: “I don’t know – she just knows when it’s right.” 
Me: “Ok, well I’ll just start messing around, I guess. But I really don’t think that there is egg.” 

 


I’ve been practicing with the pasta roller and I’ve found a practice that works great for me (see my post on making fresh pasta at home). The lucky thing about fresh pasta is, once you figure out an egg to flour ratio that works for you, the sky is the limit. So I got to work testing the right ratios for the filling.

 


I’ll spare you the gory details of my testing. The best that I came out with is 1 1/4 cups finely grated parm to 1 cup fine crumbs from a loaf of italian bread to 1 cup chicken stock, with 1 tablespoon nutmeg.

Through all of this pasta experimentation, I had the pleasure of working with the machine pictured above. 

Place a teaspoon-sized ball of filling per 1 1/2 inch square of pasta.

To hold the pasta pillows together, use a slurry to re-activate the gluten around the edges. See my post on Fresh Goat Cheese Ravioli to see more details on how to do this.

You can either cook these in simmering chicken stock right away, or freeze them between sheets of parchment for later. Either way, they are designed to be cooked in chicken stock and served immediately after.

They should cook to al dente, approximately 10 minutes, and garnished with fresh grated parmigiano reggiano cheese and a sprinkle of Italian parsley.

Grammy approved of the ravioli. I think that the praise was 90% genuine – as they were just not quite the same as the ones we have coveted year after year. The melty, savory cheese filling was perfect with its nutmeg scented goodness. You just can’t help but lose something with the outer texture when you use a roller instead of rolling them by hand. Still, I think I did OK by her. Merry Christmas all!

Italian Christmas Ravioli 
Adapted from Grammy Hall’s recipe 

1 cup finely ground italian bread crumbs, made from a dried out loaf of crusty Italian bread

1 1/4 cup finely grated parmigiano reggiano cheese, plus more for garnish

1 tablespoon grated nutmeg

2 quarts plus 1 cup chicken stock

4 cups flour

5 eggs

Handful of parsley (optional)

To make filling:

Toast or completely dehydrate italian bread pieces in the oven (you can put them in on 275 degrees, turining them occasionally until they are no longer moist at all. Use the food processor to pulverize them into very small crumbs. 

Combine crumbs, cheese, and nutmeg in a large bowl. Add chicken stock and stir with a fork.

To make ravioli pillows:

Follow these instructions to make pasta sheets.

Trim pasta into ribbons between 1 1/2 and 2 inches wide. Drop tablespoon-sized balls of the filling onto the pasta ribbons, and cut the pasta so the drops are square in the center of squares that are between 1 1/2 and 2 inches. Use water to slurry the edges of each square and press firmly to seal shut.

Put 2 quarts of chicken stock in a large pot. when the stock begins to simmer, put the ravioli in the pot and continue to simmer for 10 minutes. Plate with a ladle of stock and garnish with extra cheese and parsley (optional).