My grandmother's family immigrated from Parma, the culinary capital of Italy and perhaps the entire world. We took great tasting food for granted and expected only the best from Grandma Vera's kitchen. As one of the oldest of the 25 grandchildren, I found myself in my grandmother's kitchen at an early age. At the age of seven, I was hand-grating Parmesan cheese and stale bread for her to use in a variety of northern Italian dishes. Gradually, I worked my way up, along many of my six siblings and 18 first cousins, to assisting with making ravioli for the holidays. Beginning in mid November, my grandmother's kitchen and living room were transformed into a "ravioli production center", where the "vecchi"(old timers) would gather, speak Italian, and begin to make well over 3,000 ravioli for the holidays. The oldest male grandchildren were quickly recruited by Grandma to roll out the "pastella", a huge circle of pasta which Uncle Louie could make nearly three feet in diameter and pefectly round. Then, Grandma would come by and add the "pieno"(filling) pronounced "pieng" in her Parmigian dialect. After carefully sealing the edges, she would take out her three-foot long "forma" (the rolling pin which makes the squares), and inspect while we carefully added just the right amount of pressure to make the square indentations. Then, she would give us a "rotella" (ravioli cutting wheel), and we would cut the squares, being extremely careful not to break any. To store them, Grandma would line a cookie sheet with wax paper and carefully transfer the cut ravioli onto the sheet and freeze them. When the ravioli were frozen, she would transfer them into plastic bags and keep them in the freezer until they were ready to cook. All the while, the smell of her red sauce cooking on the stove enticed us to do as good a job as possible, because although we would not be getting any ravioli that day, we would still get to eat the "malfatti", all the left over trimmings. They were just as good as the ravioli!
Grazie nonna per tutti i meravigliosi ricordi della tua cucina!
# 1- Make the dough (3 eggs to 2 cups of flour).
# 2- Roll out the dough to make a pastella.
#3- Spread the filling (pieno) onto the dough (filling is made from beef, spinach, Swiss chard, egg, bread crumb, and Parmesan cheese)
#4- Fold the dough and seal.
# 5- Using the press (forma) roll over the dough with filling.
# 6 - Cut using a rotella (pastry cutter).
# 7 Place the individual ravioli flat on a pan and put in freezer until ready to use.
# 8: Place frozen ravioli in boiling water for about three- five minutes.Do not overcook!
#9: Drain Ravioli and mix in sauce, adding Parmesan cheese
A mangiare!
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