Prosciutto and Mushroom Ravioli with Basil Browned Butter Sauce

The boys and I celebrated Valentines this weekend by indulging in a truly special and incredibly delicious meal.  It was a feast fit for a king (or four kings as the case may be) that required ample time, patience, and love to put together.  Alex helped roll out the pasta and cut out the shapes.  He really wanted to make dinosaur ravioli, but I somehow convinced him that hearts would be more suitable for the occasion.  When it came time to stuff them, I put out on APB to my facebook fans and asked them what they would like to see in a ravioli.  I received 13 fabulous and completely unique responses.  In the end I decided to go with a variation of what Melanie suggested:

Melanie:  Mushroom, shallot, sage, proscuitto, ricotta – simple butter sauce would be all you’d need to top it and maybe some fresh grated romano??

Definitely a rockin’ delicious choice.  Thank you so much Melanie for the inspiration!

Before I move on to pasta rolling however, I have a little (exciting!) housekeeping to attend to.  First up, I wanted to share with you all that the (hopefully) final redesign for Mommie Cooks is nearing completion!  I am beyond excited about the new layout and I hope you will be too.  Look for the change to take place sometime between this Wednesday and Saturday.   This design has been a long time coming; I actually first started the process back in August if you can believe it!

Next in line, this mommy blogger has a blogoversary coming up!  Believe it or not, my first year blogoversary will be on the 24th of this month (coincidentally the same day as my birthday) and we are going to celebrate with some fun giveaways.  So be sure to stop by in the upcoming days to see what fun items I’ll be sharing with you all.

And last but certainly not least,  If you’ve ever been interested in the art of chocolate molding, then you’ll want to stop by my local NPR station’s food blog, WFAEats and check out an article I wrote on just such a topic.  I did a lot of “research” for that topic and found it to be a very tasty endeavor.

Enough jabbering.  Its time to get back to the good stuff, who’s ready to roll some ravioli?

Ingredients Needed:

For the Ravioli:

2 Cups of All Purpose Flour
3 Large Eggs
1/4 tsp Salt
1 Bunch of Fresh Basil

For the Filling:

1 Tbsp of Butter
2 Cloves of Garlic, Minced
5 Oz Mushrooms, Diced
1/2 Onion, Diced
3 Oz. Prosciutto, Diced
1/8 tsp Salt
1 tsp of Oregano
3 Oz. Chopped Fresh Spinach

For the Butter Sauce:

4 Tbsp of Butter
2 Cloves of Garlic
1 Bunch of Fresh Basil, Chopped

Let’s start out by making the dough for our ravioli.  Add to a food processor all of your ravioli ingredients.

Run the processor and mix the ingredients up well.  If the dough looks like pebbles, it’s a touch too dry.  Add about 1/2-1 tsp of water and mix again.  It should form a nice ball.  Once mixed, bring it out of the processor and knead it for a few minutes.  Here’s where we’re at:

Cover your ball of pasta dough with plastic wrap and let it rest for a good twenty minutes.

While your dough is resting, let’s whip up the tasty filling.  Grab your skillet and heat up some butter on medium heat.  Now add in a couple cloves of garlic.

Next we’ll add in the prosciutto, onions and mushrooms.

“Nom nom” as Drew, my one year old, so aptly says when he sees food he likes.

Let it cook up for a minute or two and then add in the salt and oregano.  Give it a swirl or two around the pan to mix in and then add in your spinach.

Let the spinach wilt down completely and then remove the mixture from the heat.

Now it’s time to grab your well rested pasta dough and pop out some ravioli.  If you have a pasta maker this would be the time to get it out.  You can roll the dough out with a rolling pin if you don’t have a machine, but trust me when I tell you it’s an arm workout and a half.

Rip off about a sixth of the ball and run it through your pasta maker (or hand roll it) to the desired thinness.

If you have a ravioli cutter you can use that, or you can use a glass to cut circles, or you can do like we did and use a cookie cutter to make fun shapes celebrating the holiday.

After you have your ravioli cut out, you’ll drop a good teaspoonful of the prosciutto mixture into the center of the pasta.

Brush the edges with an egg wash (the egg white from one egg) and place another pasta piece over the top.  Seal the edges with your fingers, a fork, or whatever puts a smile on your face.

Almost done!  All that’s left to do for the ravioli is to cook them up.  So grab a pot, fill it up with water and get the thing boiling.  The pasta will cook up quick (it will float when cooked), so let’s move on to the butter sauce while the water is heating up.

Grab another pan, drop the butter into it and cook it on medium until it turns a beautiful golden brown and gives off a lovely nutty smell.  At this point you’ll turn the heat down just a notch and add in your garlic.  Check out how excited my butter got when it saw I invited garlic to the party.

Now drop in a little more basil, give it a swirl or two to let the green goodness wilt down and your butter sauce is ready to rumble.

Drain your cooked up ravioli, dump them in the butter sauce and get them good and coated.  Serve them up with a hearty sprinkling of Romano or Parmesan Cheese.

Whew!  It’s quite a process to make homemade ravioli but are the results worth it?  I say absolutely.  Just check out that delicious dish and tell me you aren’t ready to roll yourself some pasta.