The Ravioli Party

On Saturday, we invited some friends over for our first ever (maybe the first ever?) ravioli party. The new pasta machine was the inspiration, and the idea was simple. We’d provide the machine, the pasta dough, and more red wine than you can shake a stick at, and anyone who came would bring something they’ve dreamed about having stuffed inside ravioli.

We had no idea if people would take to the idea. We had no experience even making ravioli, having used the machine only once before. Amazingly as people showed up, they went right to the kitchen, chopping, sauteeing, preparing their respective fillings. How great, I thought, I can just sit back and sip wine all night. Ha!

Actually I had a lot of fun. Once the fillings were ready and our core group had showed up, I began the ravioli production process (with lots of assistance). We’d knead and then flatten the dough through the pasta machine into sheets about 24 inches long and 4 wide. We’d cut that into two separate foot long sheets, placing the filling on half of the sheet in little teaspoon sized balls, and then folding the sheet lengthwise to seal and cut into individual raviolis. Each foot long sheet made about 5-6 raviolis, so we’d do about 4 sheets of each filling to make sure everyone got at least 2. After a quick boil, I’d sauce them with either homemade marinara or pesto. And repeat.

By the end of the night we’d made 6 courses of ravioli, with 4 batches of dough (16 eggs!), including a final improvised dessert course. Here was the menu:

  1. Duck and portobello mushroom with plum sauce
  2. Shrimp, pine nuts, and mushroom with marinara
  3. White asparagus, caramelized onions, and truffled goat cheese with creamy pesto
  4. Zucchini, prosciutto, dry ricotta, and basil with marinara
  5. Sun-dried tomato pesto and aged cheese with marinara and pesto
  6. Raspberry and mascarpone with chocolate praliné sauce

What can I say? It would have been spaghetti with marinara sauce without everyone’s creative fillings. Thank you all. Here are some pictures that I (and others) managed to take in between batches:

Danny testing the onion goggles at the ravioli party
Danny testing out our onion goggles
Stephanie and Justin at the ravioli table
Stephanie and Justin at the ravioli prep table (a little image stabilization would have helped here)
Feeding pasta dough through the machine
Feeding pasta dough into the machine (for kneading)
Pasta dough comes out the machine
Pasta dough coming out of the machine
Justin making raviolis
Justin making raviolis
Preparing raspberry mascarpone raviolis
Preparing our dessert course of raspberry mascarpone raviolis
Fresh, homemade, ravioli closeup
Ravioli porn closeup
Raviolis awaiting their fate
Raviolis anxiously awaiting their fate
Raviolis awaiting sauce
Cooked raviolis excitedly awaiting their sauce

9 Comments

what a delicious party. thanks, guys

Man, this party was so great! I had a LOT of fun :)
Oh and PS: your “related posts” are freakin’ great! I love that thing.

I highly recommend eating at Brasserie Pine.

Andre, for a second I was like, whut?, and then I got ya. That was definitely the closest we’ve gotten being an underground restaurant.

katie

Okay three question, Do the onion goggles work? and can we make the dessert one for Christmas? and what is your rating of the ravioli meaning which one is top dog?

My favorite picture is of the Ravioli porn closeup. I like how you call it porn because it is a very provocative shot. Also, I am very impressed with the stuffings that people came up with for a stuffing…I am just a plain cheese lover myself.

Katie, yes, amazingly, the goggles work quite well. They were a funny birthday gift from some friends last year, but we actually use them quite a bit.

We can try to make the dessert ravioli for Christmas, but it might be a little difficult with the rolling pin.

And all the raviolis were very good, but I especially like the sun-dried tomato pesto with cheese.

thanks so much for the invitation! danny and i had a marvelous time and we’re so inspired by you two!

Looks awesome. Sorry we couldn’t make it but we’re looking forward to a (the?) second ravioli party (ever.)

We’ll put you on the list!

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