Pear and Pecorino Ravioli

Like the new cutting board? My little bamboo one split so I opted for plastic.

This is one of my favorite, favorite pastas! It sound sort of odd, but it's absolutely wonderful. I had it at Felidia a few years ago and fell in love. The combination of the sweat pear and the sharp pecorino, along with a little creamy mascarpone to hold it together, is amazing. There's a little bite because of the pears, and the salty pecorino is very satisfying. You toss with butter, water, pepper, and more pecorino and you probably won't have any leftovers. If you want to skip the pasta making, you can do it with wanton wrappers.

Ingredients:
Pasta:
4 eggs
5 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
(I made extra to make noodles for dinner another night)

Filling:
1 bartlett pear, peeled and cored
8 oz pecorino cheese, grated
2 tbsp mascarpone

6 tbsp butter
3/4 cup finely grated pecorino
freshly ground black pepper

semolina flour

Directions:

Pasta:
Pulse the flour and salt in a food processor a few times to lighten the flour. Crack the eggs into a measuring cup and light beat with a fork. Add slowly to the flour while pulsing until the dough forms a ball. If it's too dry, add water 1 tbsp at a time. Remove from the food processor and knead for a minute or so until smooth. Form into a ball, cover in seran wrap, and let rest for 30 minutes.

Jamie in the background having a relaxing Sunday. (Afterward he cleaned the whole kitchen! Isn't he the best??)

Filling:
Grate the pear and mix the pear, pecorino, and mascarpone in a bowl.

Assembly:
Cut the dough into quarters. Take the first quarter and form into a semi-flat oblong oval. Feed through the widest setting on a pasta maker. Lay it out on a clean towel. Continue with the next three pieces.

Then go to the next setting down and repeat with each piece. Then the next smallest, etc. If the dough isn't as wide, or almost as wide, as the pasta maker then fold it up and feed it through again so that it's wider (this makes it easier to make the ravioli). Continue until the smallest setting. The pasta will double in length between the second to last and the last setting. It's so pretty and thin and great!

Take out a ravioli tray and sprinkle with semolina flour. Lay one piece of pasta on the tray and fill each with about a teaspoon of filling (you want the indent to be full but not overflowing).

Lay another piece of pasta on top and roll over with the little rolling pin. Voila! Perfect little raviolis! Continue until the filling or noodles run out. (If you don't have a ravioli tray, just lay a sheet of pasta out, and put spoonfulls of filling on the lower half about every inch, run your finger dipped in water in between each spoonfull, then fold over and run your fingers around the filling getting rid of air, then use a pastry cutter or pizza cutter to separate the squares.)

I wasn't going to eat these for a couple of days, so to freeze them, I put them on a wax paper lined cookie sheet in the freezer until frozen, then through them into a ziploc bag.

Perfect solution for using a Sunday afternoon to make a weeknight dinner really special.

To cook, bring a pot of water to a boil and salt. Heat the butter in a large skillet. Cook the pasta (they're done when they float up to the top, and fresh pasta cooks very quickly). Ladle about 3/4 cup of the pasta water in with the butter and transfer the ravioli into the melted butter and water mixture. Add the cheese and season generously with freshly cracked black pepper. Add more pasta water if necessary.