“I’ll do that when I have time” – Day 5 project

Before

It’s 8.11 am, but that could be construed as cheating as I have realised the ravioli will be for dinner and I want to make them this afternoon rather than this morning. It also occurs to me that this is not a whole day’s project, it just is in terms of my expectations and the finding of all cooking implements and an appropriate recipe to also cater for the ingredients we have.

I’m not good with fiddly faddly things, a term I have often heard my mum use dismissively. And rightly so, there are some things that seem too fiddly faddly to even try. Ravioli being one such thing. But, who knows, maybe I’ll knock them out quickly and efficiently, they’ll look like ravioli, taste exactly how I hope they’ll taste and I’ll go on to make them more than once in my lifetime. At no stage in this process, however, even if a glimmer of optimism creeps in, will I ever expect them to actually look like presentable little cushions of beauty.

Perhaps I should point out that I have (hopefully not too well-hidden in the depths of a cupboard) a pasta mangle (whatever they’re called), with which I have only ever made tagliatelle and lasagne sheets. I have not used the mangle for, oo, a good seven years. I have thought about using it with considerably more regularity though. I also have, though there is a fair chance I won’t find it, a frilly pasta cutting wheel. If I find that, I will be marginally more optimistic about the aesthetics of the ravioli.

After

It’s 9.13 pm. How do I start this? I’ll skip to the end and summarise in five words: I’ll never make ravioli again. Well, “ravioli”; I don’t feel I’ve made ravioli at all. Thick stodgy dumplings would be more accurate. Pah, cushions of beauty? Oh, how that makes me laugh. Though, actually, the contents did not burst out … probably because the cushion cover was so thick.

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Progress peaked right at the beginning when I found all the necessary tools within about three minutes, including my wooden wiggly cutter tool. The descent commenced when I couldn’t adjust the sturdy and necessary table clamp to hold the mangle in place. Things quickly got worse. No exaggeration, I promise, but I decided to use some WD40 to try to lube the clamp. I flipped up the directional straw of the WD40 cannister, aimed unintentionally at my head. Who knew WD40 cans had the capacity to spurt forth WD40? Well, believe it, they do. I got WD40 in my hair. And on the floor. On the pasta-making clean-zone. On the bread board. That stuff smells, not of something you want in your hair or in your ravioli, and it’s very slippery.

Couldn’t even get the ruddy stuff to work on the clamp. Miraculously found a plan B clamp, but I could see it wasn’t up to the job. I was right.

I made the flour volcano, eggs in the middle, mixed it in. That went very well. I had a slight niggle that the consistency wasn’t so much elastic as oddly sticky yet a bit clumpy/dry. In the end, I don’t even think that was the main problem.

Oh, there’s a catalogue of issues, I could write hundreds of words about them. In no particular order and not including all issues, the polenta I had for the dusting was full of weevils, which never fails to gross me out (I discovered them before I used the polenta, thank goodness), it turns out pasta dries out very quickly, rendering it less malleable and more prone to splitting and not sticking, flour and water is glue, wooden cutter wheels are neither sharp nor effective, cutting squares of roughly the same size is not my forte so I had to use a ruler, which took ages (note the drying out comment above) and, a lesson learned, pasta dough that seems thin probably isn’t thin enough, so take the mangle to the thinnest setting rather than abandoning at the penultimate thin setting because, frankly, I’d had enough of mangling great lengths of pasta dough (with Chris’ help to steady the really-does-need-a-clamp pasta mangle).

I basically ended up with pierogi, ie dense, heavy dumplings. They would have actually resembled ravioli were they not so thick and stodgy. It seems irrelevant but the ragu turned out nicely, the extra sauce was a bit too tomato-y and for a recipe that supposedly makes 50 to 60 ravioli to serve 8, I made roughly 34 and we managed to consume about 22 between us. As I write this, my stomach is slowly inflating from all the carby stodge. I fear there will be aftereffects.

I will not be making my own pasta again. I will most definitely not be making anything that requires fiddle faddle, especially when it comes to assembly. The saving grace was the ragu and that I do actually like pierogi (just not that many and not when I want ravioli). It was also an amusing, if infuriating process.

It took a few minutes to find my tools, about 20 minutes to find a suitable recipe using ingredients we had, 10 minutes to clean and dry the work surface, about 30 minutes to cover myself and swathes of the kitchen in WD40, another 15 minutes or more to clean the WD40 from the swathes; there was then a long rest. The actual making took about three hours, though not three efficient hours. I could easily have bought a packet from a supermarket, even factoring in corona-queues, in at least a third of the time, including cooking it (well, simmering it for a few minutes). Bear that in mind if you’re thinking about making ravioli.

I am going to take the day off from projects tomorrow. I will then go on to learn two specific Photoshop skills I want to use. At least there will be no need for WD40. But, from previous experience, there is an above average chance of frustration and imperfection of the type that tips slightly into the not-liveable-with category.

(If this is posted without photos, it’s because I gave up trying to find my memory card, not because of the shame of my dumpling-y ravioli. The failure to find the memory card (removed from camera ready to upload onto laptop) has resulted in a major sense of humour failure. To add to today’s timings, another hour can be added for “hunt the memory card”, which at no point has been fun, and is probably ongoing beyond the hour).

(If this is posted with photos, take note of the above and add at least a day to the timescales and the duration of sense of humour failure)

(As of 2nd May 2020, there are photos. I found my camera’s SD card … in the pocket of the apron I wore to make these messy ravioli)

Really, don’t try to make ravioli.