Home Made Ravioli

Description:
I have always wanted a good recipe for beefy Ravioli. I have made several through the years but I have always tried a meatball type mix and the filling after the raviolis are cooked have always been very dense. I finally came up with a good filling recipe and the Ravioli I made yesterday were excellent.



Ingredients:
For the filling

1/2 pound of ground beef
1/2 packet of Beefy Lipton Onion Soup Mix. (they are called Beefy Ravioli, lol)
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper
7 Saltine crackers soaked in 1/2 cup of water
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese.

Directions:
My Ravioli Making Adventure.



The trick I learned was to brown the ground beef first, which I did with the Beefy Onion Soup mix. I waited until all the moisture from the beef cook off and then allowed it to cool. I then mixed in the rest of the ingredients, draining off what ever water was left from the soaking crackers.I Mixed the filling very well and then refrigerated it over night.

Now I have always wanted to make Ravioli pleasing to the eye too. I do have a Ravioli Maker that goes onto my hand crank pasta maker but it doesn't allow for very much filling in a Ravioli at all so I have only used it a few times. I usually just lay out a sheet of pasta, put several dallops of filling onto it. Moisten around the filling with water and then set another sheet of pasta over it and seal the edges and then cut the Ravioli into squares. When boiling the Ravioli the seal is very pour. The filling usually leaks out into the pasta water. The Ravioli are always very rough in size and texture. I have tried Wanton wrappers which work out very well but I'm not making it from scratch.
I went online to see what I could find for Ravioli Makers. I came across molds that kind of resemble ice cube trays. They are metal and come in different designs for Raviolis. The prices ranged from around 26.00 to 69.00. Sorry, I'm not paying that much for an ice cube tray.

I decided to make my own version of a Ravioli Mold. I went to work and came out with a pretty good first attempt invention.

Before those though, My pasta dough is very simple, 3 cups of flour, 3 eggs. I Always use 1 egg for each cup of flour. Just a bit of olive oil. I combine these ingredients to form a crumbly mixture and then slowly add up to 1/4 cup of water to form a nice stiff dough. I then let the dough rest before rolling it out. I use my pasta roller for this. I have done it by hand but the pasta roller makes the process a whole lot quicker.