Ravioli with Mushrooms and Mascarpone with Pesto

In addition to the dishes in my previous post, I also made homemade ravioli with portobello mushrooms and mascapone.  It's a little more labor intensive and requires a longer recipe, hence the split from that post.  This is my favorite ravioli recipe (no cheating with wonton on wrappers!).  You do need a couple of tools (yay for kitchen gadgets!): ravioli press, rolling pin, and a pasta maker - hand crank. Warning, it does take a couple of hours to make, add in a little extra time if it's your first try at making ravioli.  It takes some getting used to in order to figure out what is a good consistency and how thick to make them.  Trust me, it's completely worth it!

Pasta:
Flour
Eggs
Olive oil
Salt

In true home cooking fashion - particularly Italian home cooking - there are no amounts of how much to use of each.  Don't panic!  Stay with me....

In a large bowl, crack two eggs.  Then add in flour.  You want approximately one cup of flour for each egg.  Then put in about three tablespoons of olive oil.  Then add a pinch or two of salt.  Using your hands, yes be prepared to get a little messy, combine the ingredients well.  Knead until the dough is smooth.  If you're noticing that the dough is sticky after kneading it for several minutes, add some more flour.  If it's crumbly and dry, add some more olive oil (or a splash of water).  What's important is that the dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Form a ball and cover with a damp towel.  Allow to rest for about 30 minutes. 

Filling:
2 packages of baby portobello mushrooms, cleaned
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 green onion sprigs , chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 8-ounce container of mascarpone (found in most grocery stores)
Salt and pepper

In a food processor, add the mushrooms and chop (much faster and easier than doing it by hand).

In a medium skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the garlic and saute for about 2 minutes, do not allow to brown.  Then add the mushrooms and onion.  Cook for about 7-8 minutes, until the mushrooms release their juices.  Continue to cook for a few more minutes until most of the liquid is cooked off.  Remove from heat. In a medium sized bowl, add the mushroom mixture.  Then stir in the mascapone.  The heat will melt the mascarpone somewhat and that's fine.  Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Pesto:
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Salt
Garlic
Parmesan cheese
Pine nuts, lightly toasted

In a food processor, add the garlic cloves, pinch of salt, olive oil (about 1/3 cup), Parmesan cheese, a handful of pine nuts and basil together.  Blend until smooth.  You may need to adjust by adding more olive oil if it's very thick or more basil if there's too much olive oil. 
Assembly:

Breaking off a handful of dough, run it through the pasta maker on the thickest setting, making a flat lasagna-like sheet.  After running it through a couple of times to get a smooth sheet, lower the thickness setting by one.  Run the sheet through a couple of times.  Keep doing that until the thickness is at 4.  I've found this to be ideal.  Not too thick and not too thin to tear.  The sheet will be long

Laying the sheet on top of the ravioli press, with one end lined up with the end of the ravioli press, put about a 1/2 teaspoon of filling in the center of each mold.  Fold the "extra" dough on top of itself.  Then roll the dough out on the press.  This will seal all edges.  Be aggressive with it!  Press hard or else the edges won't close.

Push out the ravioli and lightly dust with corn starch or flour.  (Corn starch is good if you're going to wait a couple of hours to cook - the dough will get gooey if you don't put corn starch on it.)

Repeat the above steps for the rest of the dough and filling.

Cooking:

Bring a large pot of water to boil.  Add in 5-6 ravioli at a time (don't overcrowd).  Cook for about 3 minutes.  Remove from water.

Toss the ravioli with the pesto and serve hot.