Best ravioli making tools?

July 17, 2020 5:37 PM

I would like to buy my brother a gift of ... something... to help make ravioli. He has a new pasta roller, but mentioned wanting a ravioli mold or stamp.

Not being a cooking person, I don't know what sources of reviews to trust but I imagine he doesn't require a $98 pasta cutter wheel (thanks Strategist). The reviews of molds seem to indicate they're prone to sticking and maybe more trouble than they're worth? Or possibly there's a trick to using them. So any recommendations for a specific mold that's great, or any tips, or other preferred stamps or ravioli tools?

posted by lemonade to Food & Drink (6 answers total)

I'm not a ravioli-making expert, but I do make pasta fairly frequently and can recommend, as basic equipment, a ravioli making mold, which is a plastic form the size of a square dinner plate with depressions in a grid pattern. Basically one places a sheet of pasta on top of the mold, presses the pasta lightly into the depressions, and then fills the depressions with ravioli filling. Another sheet of pasta is laid atop this mold, making a lid for the ravioli. A cutter - typically a ruffled edge to assist sealing - is run along the level grid between the ravioli filling depressions to seal and cut the ravioli, and voila! Your brother has fresh ravioli.

This would not be expensive. We're talking a ravioli mold and a cutting wheel (like a pizza cutter, could be called a pastry cutter). Note there are several potential sizes of ravioli, from mini to medium to very large. Medium is probably the most practical to start.
posted by citygirl at 5:50 PM on July 17, 2020

I've never made ravioli with a mold or stamp, just a roller and a cutter wheel, but I've never been disappointed with the quality or the price of anything I've bought from JB Prince. Here's a mold that might work, for less than 20 bucks.

They do have some beautiful, special stamps and wheels, but I can't speak to whether those particular ones are worth the price.

Get him The Best Side Towels In The World while you're at it :)
posted by slenderloris at 5:55 PM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

I prefer a cutter wheel to a mold because the wheel's also useful for other shapes, like tortellini, agnolotti, mezzaluna and garganelli. A $10-20 pastry wheel combo with straight and fluted edges works fine, especially for a beginner. (You're correct in ignoring that $98 Strategist recommendation).

Evan Funke's American Sfoglino cookbook taught me a lot. He hates pasta machines/rollers but you can ignore that. If your brother doesn't have one, Funke likes a bench scraper to aid in mixing dough.
posted by JackBurden at 6:48 PM on July 17, 2020

I have I believe is this one though I've had it for like 10+ years so it's possible there's a slight variation.

I love it, it works great. There's a bit of a technique to getting best results. My process is:

1. Mix up a bunch of filling. Usually this is ricotta plus other stuff (finely chopped sauteed mushrooms, squash, or other cheese. Non-vegetarians probably have other ideas)
2. Sprinkle some semolina flour on the ravioli form. Most important is near the corners - this will act as a mold release agent.
3. Roll out a length of dough to be as wide as the ravioli form and twice as long. This takes some practice to get right - I use a kitchen scale to adjust how big my dough balls are until it's a good match, and then next time I make ravioli I forget and do it again. Setting 6 on the kitchenaid pasta roller works for me - IDK if these are standardized across brands. It's as thinner or a little thinner than the thickness for spaghetti
4. Drape half the noodle over the form.
5. Paint it with water using a pastry brush (to help adhesion)
6. Put spoons of filling in the cup areas
7. Fold it over, and have it it with a rolling pin.
8. Peel them out of the mold.
9. Repeat steps 2 until this one until you're out of filling.

I often will make a big pile of them (separated with semolina-floured wax paper) because they freeze extremely well.

They always look great, and taste great. However, they are not an insignificant amount of work, and I say that as someone whose idea of a lazy quick meal is making fresh pasta from scratch (see you make the dough while the water comes up to a boil, and then it cooks faster than dried pasta). So if you think he's actually the sort of person who would actually use it, it's a great gift, but it's not a great gift for everyone.
posted by aubilenon at 7:42 PM on July 17, 2020

I've got this mold and a kitchen aid pasta rolling attachment.

The mold works great- you just need to flour the heck out of it when using. Basic procedure is roll out sheet of dough, lay it on the metal part, use plastic to make indentations for the filing, lay another sheet of pasta on top, roll with rolling pin, flip over, separate ravioli.
posted by damayanti at 6:21 AM on July 18, 2020

honestly, you can do this without any fancy gadgets. since you've got a pasta roller, roll out a sheet, put little spoon size lumps across your dough then fold it over and crimp down the dough inbetween the lumps. you can use a pizza wheel, or they make cute little fluted roller wheels that give you a zig zag pattern, and zip zip zip between your molded lumps and press down around the edges and voila! ravs are ready

there's also some crazy ravioli rolling pins that are kind of fun, but mostly good kitchen display items for threatening people in the kitchen (HOW DARE YOU OPEN THAT OVEN PREMATURELY!? DON'T MAKE ME GET THE RAVIOLI PIN!) i have one passed down from my grandmother, who definitely never used it, to my mother, who definitely never used it, to me, who has used it all of twice. It works a little better if you skip the pasta machine and just roll your dough out on a large surface into as thin of a circle as possible. then you can just slather half your dough with filling (no need to lump!), pull the other half of the dough over it, then you can roll you're semi circle out with the ravioli pin which will press everything into place then you can grab your wheel of choice to zip them apart.

all of this is to say, if you're looking for the best place to buy these things, its totally going to be any local italian market that usually have a corner of random odds and ends.

and since i'm in STL i'm contractually obligated to tell you to finish your assembled ravs with a coating of breadcrumbs and then fry the shit out of them because t-ravs are the things of gods.
posted by zsh2v1 at 8:26 AM on July 18, 2020