ravioli

• The word ravioli comes from the Italian verb ravvolgere, meaning "to wrap."

• Traditionally, ravioli should be filled with greens, or greens and cheese, since it originally comes from Liguria, where the diet was mainly vegetarian.

• Ravioli is mentioned by Boccaccio in his 14th century work, the Decameron.

• The earliest mention in English of ravioli, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is in 1841 by William Thackeray, in this thrilling sentence: For the same money, I might have had...a heap of macaroni, or ravioli.

• There is such a thing as ravioli nudi, or "naked ravioli", which is simply the filling without the pasta shell. To my mind, this more or less defeats the purpose, but hey, try it if you want.

• First, make some pasta dough. sneff has an excellent recipe.

• Decide what kind of filling you want. Here is one, meatless in the grand old tradition:
  • 1 1/2 cups ricotta, drained
  • 1 cup grated Parmigiano
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups packed boiled spinach (about 1/2 pound of frozen spinach or a pound of fresh spinach,stemmed and cooked in a drop of water) --minced
  • A pinch of nutmeg and an equal amount of pepper.
  • Salt to taste

• Roll the pasta dough into a thin rectangular sheet.

• Put heaping teaspoons of filling about an inch and a half apart and an inch and a half from the edge of the sheet.

• Fold the rest of the sheet over and cut the ravioli section away from the rest of the sheet with a serrated pasta wheel.

• Press down between the ravioli with your fingers to seal them off, then cut them apart.

• Repeat until you run out of dough or filling.

• Cook about five minutes in lightly salted water, until al dente.

• Serve with burnt butter (sneff's recommendation), or the sauce of your choice.

Thanks to about.com and oed.com