Naturally Dyed Roasted Red Beet Ravioli

Hello all, welcome to my Instructable on making Roasted Red Beet Ravioli. The beets add a wonderful burgundy color and delicious flavor to the dough and filling. I had to experiment quite a bit to get the right texture, color, and flavor but I am quite pleased with the final version. This recipe makes about 5-6 servings.

This is my second ravioli instructable, my first being the Spinach Ravioli I made a year ago. After creating that Instructable, I rediscovered my love of pasta making. Over the last year I have learned a lot about the art and I have incorporated those improvements into this recipe. I am so happy to be able to share all that I've learned with you all, and I hope you give these Raviolis a try!

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups flour (Use "00" flour for the best texture, but all-purpose works just fine as well)
• 3 large eggs
• 2 medium beets, about 1 lb
• 1 Tbsp Olive oil
• 15 oz container ricotta cheese
• 4 cloves garlic
• 8 oz container mushrooms
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella (Optional)
• 1 lemon (Optional)

Equipment:

• Pasta roller, either a hand roller or stand mixer attachment will work. If you do not have one, you can still make ravioli following the method in my previous Instructable. You can find the instructions here, at step 6. You can use the same method for this recipe.

• Ravioli press. There are many kinds of ravioli presses, and you can buy them online or in cooking supply stores. Any will work, giving you different shapes of ravioli. I will be using the two piece press seen above, if you have a different kind go ahead and follow the shaping directions that came with it. If you don't have one, you can still follow the method in the link above.

• Food processor or blender. You will need this to make the beet puree used to dye and flavor the ravioli.

For this recipe you need about two medium size beets, or one large one. You can see I had more than this, I just decided to roast all of them because they are fantastic to eat just roasted as well. In the end we will need 8 oz of roasted beets, but after cleaning, trimming, and roasting, the original weight will be reduced by a lot.

Preheat your oven to 400°F.

The first step is to scrub them clean with cold water. Don't worry too much about getting them completely clean, we are going to peel them later. Cut the stems off as well as the long tail part. Chop each beet into four roughly equal pieces.

Place the beets and garlic cloves on a large piece of foil, and drizzle the olive oil over them. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt and a pinch of ground pepper. Place another piece of foil over the beets and curl the edges together to make a packet, as seen in the above photo. Place this packet on a baking sheet and roast at 400°F for 30 minutes, or until tender and easily pierced with a fork.

Remove the top piece of foil and let the beets cool for about ten minutes. Now you can easily peel the beets. After roasting the peel should slide right off. Put aside the roasted garlic cloves for later.

Now it is time to put together the dough. It may seem intimidating if you have never made pasta dough, but this step is surprisingly easy!

Start by placing 8oz of the roasted beets in your food processor or blender. Blend until the beets are finely chopped. At this point in my spinach ravioli recipe, I found that I was unable to get the spinach blended finely enough to make a puree, which left the ravioli with large green speckles and a lack of overall color. I found that the solution to this is to add the eggs one at a time to the blender and continue blending until fully pureed. This allows the beets to have more moisture without changing the overall dough composition. Remove 1/2 cup of the beet puree, and reserve the rest for the filling

You will need a clean counter surface to work on. Place the flour on a mound in the center of your work space. Use your fingers to create a well in the center, and pour in the 1/2 cup of the beet puree. Use your hands to start combining the puree and flour. Keep mixing until you have a rough dough, it will most likely seem very dry. From here you can either knead with a stand mixer on low for 8 minutes, or knead by hand for ten minutes. Whichever route you choose, keep an eye on the moisture level of the dough. If it feels sticky to the touch, go ahead and add a teaspoon or two of flour and continue kneading. It will be a dry dough, but if it is falling apart or the flour won't combine all the way, add a teaspoon of water. In the end you want the dough the be smooth and elastic.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and leave it to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. This will make it much easier to work with later.

While the dough rests, you can make the filling. For this recipe I kept it pretty simple, but you can also add cooked Italian sausage, spinach, or fresh herbs if you like.

First, wash and finely chop the mushrooms. Heat a frying pan over medium heat with a drizzle of olive oil, and then add the mushrooms. Cook until browned, stirring occasionally. It should take less than 10 minutes. Allow the mushrooms to cool for 5-10 minutes.

Finely chop the garlic cloves.

In a mixing bowl, combine the ricotta, remaining beet puree, mushrooms, garlic cloves, egg, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and a pinch of ground pepper. Optionally, you can add 1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella. I don't always add it, but it does give the filling a nice melty cheese texture. Place this mixture into a gallon size bag and store in the fridge until the ravioli are ready to fill.

Divide your dough into four equal pieces. Remove one of the pieces to work with and return the rest to the plastic wrap so they don't dry out. On a lightly floured surface, use a rolling pin to flatten the dough to a thickness of about 1/4 inch. If you are using the stand mixer pasta attachment, always use the lowest setting on the mixer. You can also use a manual pasta roller, in which case you will need to hand crank it.

The pasta roller will have a number that you select to determine the thickness. Start with the thickest option, which is 1 on my machine. Turn on the mixer if you are using one, and slowly feed one end of the dough into the top of the roller. To prevent any stretching, you may want to use one hand to gently support the dough as it comes out of the roller. Once it is all the way through, lay it on a clean surface and lightly dust the top with flour. Then turn the roller dial counter-clockwise once to reduce the thickness. Repeat the same steps of feeding it through and then lightly dusting with flour. You will keep doing this while turning the dial once each time until you reach about 1/16". On the KitchenAid mixer pasta attachment, this will be number 6. It may be different on your roller, so make sure to check the manual that came with it.

You will need to repeat this step for all four of the pieces of dough, but I recommend shaping each sheet into ravioli before rolling the next out. This prevents the sheets from getting too dry.

Now to shape the ravioli, which in my opinion is the funnest part! I will be using a two-piece square press, if you have a different one, please read the instructions that came with it.

First you will want to make sure to spray the bottom metal part of the press with cooking spray. I have also recently found that lightly dusting the sprayed press with flour makes things even easier, so I highly recommend it.

Cut one of your sheets in half crosswise, as seen in the above picture. Lay one half of the sheet over the metal part of the press. You can stretch it slightly to reach all sides if you need to. Then take the plastic part, and press it down to form the dimples of the ravioli. One thing I have learned since my last Instructable is that it helps to press it down tight against the dough, and leave it for a few seconds before removing. This will give you nice defined ravioli.

Cut one of the tips off of your bag of filling. Hold the bag like a piping bag(refer to above photo) and fill each of the dimples with about 1 1/2 Tbsp of filling.

Lay the other half of your dough sheet over the whole tray, and gently press it down. Now take a rolling pin or a glass and use it to seal your ravioli, rolling over the whole tray until you can clearly see all of the metal zigzags of the press through the dough. If you sprayed and floured the press, the ravioli should come out easily when you turn the press over. If any get stuck, you can use a toothpick to gently pry out one of the corners to help remove it.

Place the ravioli in a single layer on a floured plate or tray, refrigerate until ready to cook. If you don't plan to cook them the same day, they can also be frozen to cook later.

With all naturally dyed ravioli, you will likely run into the issue of color loss during cooking. I found when cooking with my normal method, they ended up being a pale pink color after boiling. I really wanted to retain as much of that rich burgundy red as possible, so I did some research and experimenting. I learned that the color from beets will change depending on PH level, and that raising acidity levels can help stabilize the color. The best solution I found was to add lemon juice to the boiling water to raise the acidity, and I was shocked at how well this worked. I definitely recommend it.

Since these ravioli are so fresh, they only take about 3 to 4 minutes to cook. Fill a medium sized pot with water, and bring to a boil. Add a tablespoon of salt for flavor. You can optionally add the juice from one lemon to help retain the raviolis color. All of the ravioli should be floating at the top when they are cooked, and you may want to remove one to test the doneness before straining the rest. Once done they will be tender and a shade lighter in color.

You can top with whatever sauce you prefer. For this batch I just simmered some fresh thyme and sage in butter for a few minutes, and then added the ravioli. They go really good with light flavors like this, since the filling has so much flavor by itself.

I hope you give this recipe a try, and please leave a comment if you do make them!