Sausage Pizza hold the Pizza

My family has a strange and intimate relationship with sausage.  We get it at Ready Meats in NE - we get it as Morellies in St. Paul, we get it with our Bucca Pasta, we get pounds of it made when we order our buffalo.  One of my friends heads straight to the fridge to get a beef stick as soon as she gets into the kitchen and I never travel for longer than 2 hours without stocking up.  When dieting it's also great!

Did you know that the number one snack food in Minnesota is meat.  Yup - meat pounds and pounds of jerky and sausage links.  You can buy them individually at the gas station or you can buy a five pound brick at Gander Mountain.  Because what goes better than camping and sausage.  We are very tribal in Minnesota going back to our roots and eating sausage pizza hold the pizza.

So KG decided he wanted a meat grinder/sausage maker for fathers-day.  I am enthusiastic about it and we both decided to get a really nice one from his work.  I knew that we could give it away, maybe if it's good we can sell it to friends along with our pickled beans.  Our house is going to smell like wieners and we are going to have feet upon feet of wieners hanging from the rafters. 

We had to wait to get it delivered and in the mean-time I decided to sharpen my charicuterie skills and enhance my sausage handling.  And KG was totally up for it!

I decided to make sausage filled raviolis and I was going to make my own pasta dough too boot.  The recipes as easy at it gets and I just knew it was going to be tasty so it was worth doing.

Here is my recipe for sausage raviolis - or any other stuffing you want.  This recipe will make about 50 average size raviolis - enough for five people to eat a large portion.  You can also freeze the raviolis or the dough and make some later.  I approach this like pickling or making tamales - more than one person is nice and it will take some time.

 Pasta:
16 oz of regular flour
12 eggs
2 whole eggs
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp oil

You can either dump it into your mixer or you can make a pile on your counter-top put the wet ingredients in the middle and slowly incorporate it until you get a firm ball.  Either way you want to eventually dust your counter with flour and work the dough over and over until everything is incorporated and you can exercised the dough.  If you want to add some color/flavor go ahead and puree some spinach or roasted peppers but go easy on the eggs so that the dough doesn't get to mooshey.  Cover it with cling wrap or a slightly damp towel and set aside for 30 min.

Stuffing:
1/2 lb spicy Italian sausage
1/2 lb lean ground meat or veal or turkey
1 cup bread crumbs
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup diced parsley
8 gloves of garlic
two eggs

Brown the meat - then add the garlic and parsley until cooked and wilted.  Set aside and let it cool down.  Once it is cook enough to add the eggs w/o cooking them put the meat into a food processor and then add all of the rest of the ingredients but set aside 1/2 of the bread crumbs and add it slowly until you get a firm but not hard texture of the mix.

Now cut you dough into 4 pieces and either press it through a pasta maker or use a rolling pin on our counter.  Get it as think as you possibly can.

You can make what ever side or shape of pasta that you want - it all cooks the same.  I like to use shot glasses to make a smaller size ravioli.  You can also make squares and experiment with tortellini.

Remember to keep the dough covered so it doesn't dry out.

Once you finish raviolis either put them on a well dusted baking sheet to dry or put then on a cookie rack.  Make sure to dust the heck out of the bottom.  The ingredients will soak through the dough and make it gummy and pasty if you don't generously flour the bottom of the pasta.  Furthermore you should try to source a baking cooling rack so you get air flow under the pasta and there is less flat contact between the pasta and the bottom surface.

Let the pasta dry out for 4 hours and then put away in the fridge.  I like to use those large flat disposable containers and I am sure to dust was paper between the raviolis and try not to make then touch each other if possible.  Until it is frozen you will want to handle with care.

When you cook them set them out on the counter for 30 minutes and then salt some water (see the pasta blog for pointers) and cook for three minutes each.  Test a few first and then eat it to see if it's ok.  Pull the raviolis out one by one - do not dump them into a colander.  You can either put them right into the sauce you have chosen or you can put them on an oiled pan or dish.  Do not let them touch until there is a good lubricant between them like sauce or oil. 

After all of the work you put into this be sure to store, cook and serve carefully so you don't ruin all of your hard labor!

Enjoy-a