Homemade Mushroom Ravioli in a Mushroom Broth

I think if there is one food that you are going to make from scratch in the kitchen that's flavor and texture will far exceed that of a store bought food, it's going to be pasta. Some of you might think I'm nuts here, but fresh made pasta is absolutely wonderful tasting. There is a delicacy to it that no factory made pasta can mimic and unless you shop at a gourmet grocer, you'll likely not be able to enjoy this without making it yourself.
Last week I shared my post for hosting an elegant dinner party and one of the dishes I made for my guests was homemade ravioli in mushroom broth. The broth is filled with flavors of fall and the delicate ravioli are a perfect accompaniment.  This seemed like the ideal dish to use for this challenge, especially because I've been wanting to share how to make homemade pasta.

Choosing Your Flour
Pasta is the one place where I always break my rule of trying to avoid refined ingredients. You can make pasta with whole wheat flour, however it often lends too much of its own flavor, overwhelming the delicate flavors you may have accompanying the pasta. Instead I use organic, unbleached, white flour. Many authentic Italian pasta recipes will call for flour known as 00, or doppio zero. I have yet to find it anywhere that I shop, which is why I use white flour. Another flour you'll see is semolina pasta flour. Yes, machine made pasta is made using this flour and it's perfect for this form of processing, however, if you try to use this flour (which I have) you'll probably find yourself becoming very frustrated with your dough. Semolina flour is rarely ground fine enough to make it easy to work with, instead it is granular in texture versus the talcum-soft white of 00 flour and comes no where close to the fineness of white flour.

Methods
There are two ways to approach making your own pasta; by machine or by using a rolling pin. I use a pasta machine that I hand crank. The steps I share below will also use this method. I love using a pasta machine – it's easy to use once you get your dough to the right consistency and always gives you a wonderful product in the end. I've found that many people already have pasta machines in their kitchen, just perhaps back in a corner of a cabinet collecting dust from non use!

The soup below can easily be doubled and I'd actually recommend doing so and freezing the broth and ravioli for use on a day when you want a wonderful homemade dish, but don't necessarily want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen making it. To do this, simply freeze the broth after it's made and freeze the ravioli on a cookie sheet. Once frozen you don't need to thaw the ravioli, simply cook them in boiling water. They will take just a bit longer to cook. Also, don't discard the leftover mushrooms after making the broth. Stick them in the fridge and save them for breakfast. Slice the mushrooms up in the morning and saute them in a couple tablespoons of butter. Beat together some eggs and salt and then toss in the mushrooms to create some delicious scrambled eggs. You can also use any leftover ravioli filling in the eggs too. A wonderful treat for a Saturday or Sunday morning!

You can download these instructions as a PDF to print and add to your recipe collection by clicking here: Homemade Mushroom Ravioli in a Mushroom Broth.