Perhaps the most frustrating category of recipe is the one that is neither easy nor hard but embodies the slogan of the game Othello: a minute to learn, a lifetime to master. Yesterday, as I made stracotto ravioli, I felt myself standing at the beginning of a very long road, an Appalachian Trail of pasta. I almost wished the ravioli would come out lousy so I could abandon the whole idea. Unfortunately, they were pretty good.
Incidentally, when I was a kid, I had a travel Othello game. On the front of the box was the usual slogan, but the back showed a young couple from the rear, a travel Othello game wedged into the man’s back pocket. The slogan, I swear: “Whither thou goest.” Why yes, that *is* a travel Othello game in my pocket! It just occurred to me to Google for “othello whither thou goest,” and here it is. This, as far as I’m concerned, is the sort of thing that makes life worth living.
Detour over. I began with leftover Italian pot roast (stracotto) and a recipe from Biba Caggiano’s Trattoria Cooking, a book I highly recommend. You take some leftover pot roast and sauce and throw it in the food processor with a couple of eggs and Parmigiano. Making ravioli filling does not require a lifelong pursuit of excellence. It’s easy.
Then I made some pasta dough, was too impatient to let it rest very long, and started rolling it through the pasta machine. Making ravioli is a very mechanical process. If you’re inexperienced, as I am, it takes a long time, but it isn’t actually hard. You keep repeating the same steps: cut off a chunk of dough, roll it thinner and thinner; then spoon filling onto the pasta, fold it over itself, and press it shut. Then cut with a pizza roller or whatever is handy. Because I’m phobic about filled pastas coming open and disgorging their contents into the cooking water, I also crimped the edges with a fork.
What was good about my homemade ravioli: the filling, and the fact that there were enough left over for me to have for lunch today. What was not so good: the pasta, which had a snappy texture kind of like the controlled-atmosphere “fresh” pasta at the supermarket. (Many years ago, I took some of that Buitoni beef ravioli and served it with Thai green curry sauce. I haven’t done it again, but it wasn’t bad, either.)
When in doubt, consult the eGullet Culinary Institute. The three-part stuffed pasta class is a classic of the genre. It suggests that probably (a) I should be using lower-protein flour, like the Italian *tipo 00;* (b) I didn’t knead or rest the dough long enough; and (c) man, that tortelli with asparagus and pecorino recipe sure looks good.
I served the ravioli in a simple butter and thyme sauce. (Sage butter is the classic, but I already had thyme in the fridge.) Iris, upon being presented with her plate, said, “But there’s MEAT in those bites.”
“But you like meat,” I replied. By then, however, she was already stuffing bites into her mouth. Stracotto ravioli: it’s a big hit among the younger set.
