Egg Yolk Ravioli

Raviolo Bergese

 

A while back my niece sent me the Raviolo Bergese recipe by Melissa Pellegrino and Matthew Scialabba on the Fine Cooking website. I hesitated making this since I have never been successful at making homemade pasta. Since we are here to challenge ourselves, we decided to give it a try and make my niece happy.

There was no issue finding these ingredients. As a matter of fact, we just picked up some eggs since all the other ingredients were already in the pantry. While at the store we came across some truffle butter and decided to get it just for kicks. The cost of the eggs was just about $5 and what we call a bargain.

Following the recipe we started to make the dough right on the freshly cleaned counter-top. We created our flour well and combined the eggs. It became very apparent that something was wrong since the dough wasn’t coming together. We weren’t sure if it was the recipe or  our eggs weren’t large enough, but it wasn’t coming together and was very dry.

 

We made the decision to add another egg and after a little kneading and some muscle power, it really started to come together. The instructions said to cover the dough with a towel and let sit for 20 minutes, what it didn’t say was if the towel needed to be dry or damp. This worried us a little, but we followed the instructions and just covered it with a towel.

While the dough rested, we started on the filling. Although, Eddy protested having to remove the stems from the spinach, the filling was simple to make. We added our filling to our piping bag (Ziploc bag) and set it aside. Checking on our dough we noticed right away the dough looked silky and ready to cut.

We gathered a piece and squared it out for the pasta roller. We passed the dough through and folded it over and passed it through several times on the widest setting until it started to look like a rectangle. This was something I didn’t do on my previous attempts and feel it’s very important to the success of rolling out the dough. Increasing the setting by one on each pass significantly increased the length of what was becoming our first successful pasta.

As instructed, this process was repeated over and over until the second to the last setting finally arrived. Thank goodness it didn’t call for more passes through the machine. We would have needed to call for help to keep the six-foot pasta banner from hitting the ground. We cut the strip of dough in half so we had a top and bottom portion of our ravioli. The top portion was set aside and we began piping the filling on to the dough. Piping the filling made a perfect resting place for the egg yolks.

At this point, we realized that everyone in the house became our audience. The moment the first yolk landed in the filling nest, everyone in the room shared our excitement. To be honest, we both joined in the cheering and dancing the moment it came together. Not only did it work it looked just like the recipe.

It was a little nerve racking placing the top portion of the dough over the delicate yolk. We took it nice and slow not wanting to break the yolks and wanted to make sure there weren’t any air bubble. It actually started to look like uncut ravioli. While cutting the ravioli, some tore a little but a quick pinch on the tears solved that issue quickly. Rolling out the other pieces of the dough that patiently waited for us, we realized the dough was drying out. This dilemma confirmed our original doubts, that the towel should have been moist. We quickly dampened the towel and covered the other pieces.  Using a little olive oil when we rolled out the dough that was dried. After a few passes through the roller, it had regained its moisture and coming out the same as the first piece.

The finished ravioli were delicately dropped in to the boiling water as we started heating up the butter. After a few minutes they were ready for their swim in some hot butter. This is where the truffle butter came in. Just a few seconds in the butter and we were ready to plate. As we plated, my niece and the rest of the audience eagerly waited for a serving. The dough was cooked to perfection and the filling was amazing. We don’t think anyone was expecting how much flavor these raviolis packed. The hint of lemon stood out and really brought all the flavors together. The outcome was really pleasing.

We had some left over dough and decided to make a couple of square ravioli. The squares provided more pasta per piece and if that is your preference, this is the way to go. They were more filling and just as delicious. We highly recommend this recipe. It was fun to make and a crowd pleaser. You can make yourself look like a personal chef with just a little practice.

Ratings:

Raviolo Bergese (Egg Yolk Ravioli)

​​If you would like to try this recipe yourself, click here for full instructions and check out the Fine Cooking website.