Grandma's Italian Ravioli Austrian Style

With Columbus Day being celebrated this Monday, it's the time of year when everyone feels at least a little bit Italian.

Of course, that's not difficult, considering the widespread availability and popularity of Italian food.

To tell you the truth, I've always felt partly Italian myself, even though I'm Austrian by birth and American by citizenship.

If you know anything at all about history and geography, you realize that those sorts of national distinctions are flexible, and not just when it comes to food.

From the mid-19th century until the end of World War I, Carinthia, the part of southern Austria where I grew up, was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; so were portions of the Lombardy and Venice regions of the country we now call Italy.

Cuisines are as flexible as historical borders, so I grew up eating many foods people identify as Italian, even though I thought of them as our own family's home cooking. That's especially true of the noodle dishes my grandmother and mother made for our family.

One of our favorites was my grandmother's ravioli, which looked distinctively Italian but had a filling of potatoes, cheeses, and fresh herbs that owed as much to middle-European cooking as it did to that of the Mediterranean. Those plump filled pastas were so delicious, and my grandmother made them in such great quantities that we had competitions to see who could eat the most. My father always won.

The real winner, of course, was my grandma, who earned our eternal admiration for her pasta-making skills. Her dough was rich and tender, yet firm enough to hold up to the robust filling, and she mixed, kneaded, and rolled it completely by hand. Fortunately, the food processors most of us have in our kitchens perform most of the strenuous mixing and kneading in less than a minute, leaving you to do just some gentle kneading by hand to form the mixed dough into a smooth ball. You can still easily roll out the dough by hand, as my grandma did, or use a hand-cranked or electric pasta machine.

The filling is fairly easy to make, combining scooped-out baked potato with cheeses. My grandma used an Austrian curd cheese called topfen, which I approximate in my version of the recipe by combining farmer's cheese, goat cheese, and Parmesan. Her traditional seasoning for the filling was a mixture of fresh mint and chervil, and to this day I really can't imagine the ravioli tasting better with anything else.

So spend this Sunday preparing a batch of these ravioli, keeping them in the refrigerator ready to cook the next day for Columbus Day. Then, sit down and celebrate your own Italian, or Austrian, heritage.

Makes 36 to 40; serves 4 to 6

Ingredients - Grandma's Italian Ravioli Austrian Style

1 pound baking potatoes, scrubbed
4 ounces plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 shallots, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
8 ounces farmer's cheese
5 ounces fresh creamy goat cheese
2 ounces mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons minced fresh mint leaves
2 tablespoons minced fresh chervil leaves
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Salt
White pepper
Basic Pasta Dough (recipe follows)
1/4 cup semolina or all-purpose flour, for dusting
1 egg lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon water, to make an egg wash
Minced fresh parsley, for garnish

Preparation - Grandma's Italian Ravioli Austrian Style

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake the potatoes until fork tender, about 40 minutes.

Carefully cut the potatoes in half lengthwise. Scoop out the warm flesh and transfer to a bowl. Mash with a fork and set aside.

In a small skillet, heat the 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic and saute until soft, about 4 minutes. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the farmer's cheese, goat cheese, mascarpone, and 3 tablespoons Parmesan; add the mint and chervil, beaten egg, shallot and garlic, potato, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir lightly but thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes. At least 1 hour before serving, use lightly moistened hands to roll the filling into 36 to 40 walnut-sized balls, putting them on a clean tray. Refrigerate.

Cut the pasta dough into 4 portions and work with 1 at a time, keeping the remainder covered with plastic wrap. Lightly dust a work surface with flour. With a pasta machine or rolling pin, roll out a dough portion into a 20-by-4-inch rectangle. Brush with egg wash and arrange 9 or 10 filling balls along the lower third of the length, 1 to 1-1/2 inches apart. Fold the dough over the balls. Press down around each ball to seal the pasta, taking care to eliminate air pockets. With a 2-inch round cookie cutter, cut out the ravioli. Dust a tray with flour and arrange the ravioli on it, dusting with more flour. Repeat with the remaining dough, egg wash, and filling. Cover and refrigerate until cooking time.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Boil the ravioli until al dente, tender but still slightly chewy, 3 to 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, put the remaining butter in a large skillet over high heat and cook until it begins to brown. Drain the ravioli and add to the butter, turning gently to coat. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and season to taste with salt and white pepper.

With a spoon, transfer the ravioli to serving plates. Garnish with parsley and serve immediately.

Ingredients - Basic Pasta Dough

Makes about 1-1/2 pounds

3 cups all-purpose flour
8 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup water
Semolina or all-purpose flour, for dusting

Preparation - Basic Pasta Dough

In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine the flour, yolks, salt, oil, and 3 tablespoons of the water. Process until the dough begins to hold together. Stop the machine and pinch a piece of dough: If it feels too dry, pulse in up to 1 tablespoon more water, until the dough forms a moist ball.

Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until it forms a smooth ball. Loosely wrap in plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for 20 minutes to 1 hour before using in the recipe above.

Twitter: @ihavenet

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