This takes a little bit of time to make but it's so delicious it's totally worth the effort!!
Ingredients:
Basic Pasta Dough (recipe and instructions here)
4 medium sized short ribs (that's 4 bones with meat)
1 cup Marsala wine
2 cups beef broth
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, cut into 3 pieces
2 stalks celery, sliced
2 medium hot house tomatoes, chopped
Salt, to taste
3 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
Directions:
For the Short Ribs
In a heavy skillet heat 2 tablespoons oil on high heat until it is hot. Add the short ribs and sear on all sides, this should only take 1 minute or 2 per side if your oil is the right temperature. Remove the seared short ribs from the pan and set aside.
In a heavy saute pan or stock pot heat 1 tablespoon of oil over medium heat and add the onion, cook for approximately 5 minutes. Add the celery and carrots and cook for another 5 minutes.
Turn the heat to high and add the marsala wine cook down for 2-3 minutes. Place the short ribs in the pot add the tomatoes and broth. The broth should cover most of the short ribs, if it doesn't you can add water as needed. Allow it to come to a boil then turn the heat to low, put the lid on the pot and let it simmer for approximately 4 hours.
After 4 hours of simmering the short ribs should be very tender and literally falling off the bone. Taste the broth and season with salt to taste. Remove the short ribs from the pot and allow them to cool just enough to handle.
Using your fingers shred the short ribs finely, otherwise it might be chewy inside the ravioli. Removing extra fat as necessary.
Add approximately 1/2 cup of the broth to the short ribs to moisten the meat, but you don't want it to be runny. Add the ricotta and Parmesan cheese and mix well. Set aside.
In the meantime, prepare the pasta dough.
Divide the dough into workable pieces (6 parts), keep the dough you are not working with covered. Flour your work space, hands and dough on both sides. Using your rolling pin roll out the dough into an oval shape. Pass the dough through the pasta machine at its widest setting. Do this a few times until the dough is smooth. Continue these steps and make the setting thinner each time. Stop at the second thinnest setting for ravioli. You will notice the dough will get longer as the settings become thinner so make sure you're moving your dough as it comes out to avoid sticking.
Lay the sheet of pasta on a floured work space and place a small amount of the short rib mixture on the dough a few inches apart. Tip: I like to make a guide of where to put the filling by lightly stamping the dough with the ravioli stamp.
Lay another sheet of pasta on top of the the first layer and rib mixture, trying to line it up as best as possible.
Using the ravioli stamp, cut out the ravioli, turning slightly to right and left to help it release.
Place the cut out raviolis on a floured piece of parchment paper and flour the top of the ravioli, cover with another piece of parchment paper.
To cook the ravioli, fill a large pot with water, add a pinch of salt and a drizzle of oil. Allow it to come to a rolling boil and add the ravioli. The ravioli will rise to the top, cover the pot with a lid and allow the ravioli to cook for 10-12 minutes. This will give you an al dente pasta, if you prefer it to be cooked more continue to cook for a few extra minutes.
Toss it with your favourite sauce. I paired mine with a parsley butter sauce which was great because it was subtle enough to let the short rib flavour shine while still giving it an extra punch of flavour. Check out the recipe here.