Tomato sauce doesn’t have to come from a can
For some reason, I got it into my head this year that I wanted
to make homemade ravioli and pasta sauce all from scratch. I even
planted three Roma tomato plants at the beginning of spring,
thinking they would be perfect for a recipe I had already scouted
out last year. The main hesitation was just that it requires having
the oven on for two and half hours in the middle of tomato season,
which often coincides with hot weather.
Tomato sauce doesn’t have to come from a can
For some reason, I got it into my head this year that I wanted to make homemade ravioli and pasta sauce all from scratch. I even planted three Roma tomato plants at the beginning of spring, thinking they would be perfect for a recipe I had already scouted out last year. The main hesitation was just that it requires having the oven on for two and half hours in the middle of tomato season, which often coincides with hot weather.
But since the weather has been so mild and I had an extra day off for Labor Day, I decided to tackle the recipe. The first task involved finding Roma tomatoes at a farmers market to add to the ones from my garden. My Roma plants haven’t done so well. With plenty of tomatoes on hand, my mom and I prepped the Alton Brown recipe I found and had everything laid out in glass baking dishes in the oven. At minute 15, however, we heard a loud crash in the kitchen. One of the baking dishes exploded into a million pieces, making all the tomatoes inedible.
My mom took the lead on cleaning up the tomatoes and ran to the store for a second batch of not-as-appealing ones as well as some new, metal baking dishes. The second attempt worked fine, except I didn’t have a food mill. I used a wire mesh strainer to get as much liquid out as I could by using a metal spoon to press out all the concentrated roasted tomato juice. We got about three-quarters of a cup out.
Now I thought the ravioli would be the easy part of the meal since it just required an easy pasta dough recipe, rolling out the dough with the pasta maker and mixing up the filling. But when I tried to roll out the first ball of dough, one of the rollers on the pasta machine was broken. With the sauce already on the stove and the filling already mixed up, it seemed there was no turning back.
I rolled out the dough by hand with a rolling pin. The result was ravioli that were thicker than they should have been and a bit tougher from all the handling. But luckily, they still tasted just fine with the sauce.
I might wait another year before I try my hand at making tomato sauce and I’ll make sure to get a new pasta maker before I attempt to make pasta again.
Tomato sauce
Recipe courtesy of Alton Brown
20 Roma tomatoes, halved and seeded
1/4 c. olive oil
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 c. finely diced onion
2 tsp. minced garlic
1 tbsp. finely chopped oregano leaves
1 tbsp. finely chopped thyme leaves
1 c. white wine
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
In 2 (13 by 9-inch) pans place tomato halves cut side up. Sprinkle with oil, salt and pepper, onion, garlic, and herbs. Bake tomatoes for two hours. Check the tomatoes after one hour and turn down the heat if they seem to be cooking too quickly. Then turn the oven to 400 degrees and bake another 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and process tomatoes through a food mill on medium dye setting over a small saucepan. Discard skins. Add white wine, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cook for 5 minutes.
Mariana meat sauce
½ lb. ground beef
1 small white onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
15 button mushrooms, sliced
2 large beefsteak tomatoes, diced
2 c. tomato sauce (see recipe above or use canned tomato sauce)
1 tbsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a deep saute pan. Add in onion and garlic and cook for about three minutes. Add in the ground beef and cook for another five minutes. Add in the mushrooms and cook for three minutes, stirring occasionally. Add in the tomato sauce (recipe above). After ten minutes, stir in fresh tomatoes. Cook for another five minutes until tomatoes are soft, but not disintegrated. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve over ravioli or other pasta.
Pasta dough for ravioli
Recipe courtesy of Tyler Florence
5 c. all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 tsp. salt
6 large eggs
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
To make the dough by hand: Combine the flour and salt on a flat work surface, shape into a mound, and make a well in the center. Add the eggs and 1 tablespoon olive oil to the well and lightly beat with a fork. Gradually draw in the flour from the inside wall and mix it with the beaten eggs. Use 10 hand for mixing and the other to protect the outer wall. Continue to incorporate all the flour until it forms a smooth dough. Dust some flour on the work surface; knead and fold the dough until it is elastic and smooth, this should take about 10 minutes. Brush the surface of the dough with the remaining olive oil and wrap the dough in plastic wrap; let rest for about 30 minutes to allow the gluten to relax.
To roll out the dough: Cut the ball of dough in half, cover and reserve the piece you are not using to prevent it from drying out. Dust the counter and dough with a little flour. Press the dough into a rectangle and roll it through a pasta machine set at the widest setting 2 or 3 times. Guide the dough with your hand as it emerges from the rollers to prevent it from puncturing or stretching. Dust the sheets with extra flour whenever the dough gets sticky. Reduce the setting and crank the dough through again 2 or 3 times. Continue reducing the setting and rolling until the machine is at its narrowest setting; the dough should be paper-thin, about 1/8-inch thick for ravioli. Roll out the other half.
Cut the dough into squares of desired size. See filling for next steps.
Ravioli filling
1 c. low-fat ricotta cheese
½ c. parmesan cheese
½ c. chopped spinach, drained
20 basil leaves, shredded
1 clove garlic, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 egg whites for egg wash
Stir together the ingredients, except the eggs for the wash. Using the rolled out raviolis, place about a tablespoon in the center of each ravioli square. Brush the egg wash along the edges of the dough and fold over to form a rectangle, or place two pieces of dough together for larger ravioli. Dust the ravioli with flour to keep from sticking.
Boil water with a dash of salt. Add ravioli. Depending on thickness, the pasta should cook in five to 10 minutes.
