A new twist on a family holiday staple

Growing up we always made the trek to the north shore of Boston from where we lived in New Jersey for the Christmas holiday. The first stop on our trip was to my father’s parents, followed by my mother’s parents who lived less than an hour away in New Hampshire.

Christmas dinner at my grandmother’s was an all day affair and it was more grazing than a meal. Food would start pouring out of the kitchen mid morning and wouldn’t stop until a very large ham wound up on the table in the afternoon. The standard operating procedure was to eat something, go into a food coma, wake up and then repeat.

One of my favorite things that my grandmother would serve were her homemade ravioli. Her and my grandfather would work for days making them so there would be plenty to go around. It’s been nine years since I moved to Charlotte and nearly six years since my grandfather passed, so it has been a long time since that familiar family holiday staple has graced our dinner table.

This year I decided to bring back that tradition, so over the course of three days I labored over a big batch of raviolis for my family to enjoy. And while my grandmother’s ravioli have a traditional cheese filling I, unsurprisingly, had to put my own spin on them.

A few months ago we were out and about running some errands and decided to stop for dinner since it was getting late. We ate at an Italian restaurant, which is out of the ordinary for us, as I feel I can make whatever they can and make it better. That and I’d rather not pay $15 for one plate of pasta when I can make us both dinner and lunch for the next day for the same amount.

One of the special menu items that day was a braised beef ravioli that my wife had to have. When our food came we both tried it, and while it was good, she told me that she thought I could do better. I took that as a challenge and, having never made a ravioli with a meat filling in it before, I started doing some research and planning.

A month or so later I was ready to give it shot and made a batch of my Super Bowl Braised Beef Short Ribs. After fork shredded the meat and mixing it with some other ingredients I made a few dozen test raviolis. The result was good, but I felt that I could do better.

Not too long after that I was watching one of my favorite cooking shows, Lidia’s Italy, and I watched her make agnolotti when it dawned on me how I could fix my short rib ravioli recipe even – grind the meat!

Armed with this new plan I set out to make a much bigger batch as my contribution to our Christmas Day pot luck meal. I decided this would be a multi-day, multi-stage process to ensure the best filling possible. The night before I planned to braise the short ribs I browned eight pounds of ribs, deglazed my pan with some red wine and caramelized my aromatics, then combined everything together in the vessel to my slow cooker and refrigerated it.

The next morning I braised the meat for six hours on low, then separated the contents into three bowls: one for the meat itself, one for the braising liquid and one for the aromatics that I strained out of the liquid. When all that was done, I put all the bowls into the refrigerator overnight.

At the start of the third day I removed the bowl with the braising liquid, discarded the beef fat that had accumulated on top and reduced it down in a medium stock pot with the rest of the bottle of wine I used in the initial braise, a can of crushed tomatoes and two cups of beef stock. It took a little over an hour or so get to get liquid mixture to reduce by more than half.

After setting up my grinder I proceeded to alternate chunks of the braised beef short ribs that were still cold with spoonfuls of the aromatics. I decided to include the aromatics to add flavor, texture and, to a degree, moisture. Once all the meat and aromatics had been ground up I added two cups of Peccorino Romano cheese, six eggs and a cup of the cooled braising liquid reduction to complete the ravioli mixture.

After fours hours of active prep/cooking time, six hours of inactive cooking time over three days and 120 raviolis, I’m pleased to report that the final product was the best ravioli I’ve ever had and, if I could, I’d bottle that reduction sauce and sell it.

Probably one of the best things about making such a large batch at one time is that, like my cold smoked sausages, I can have braised short rib deliciousness any time I want. I froze a bunch of the ravioli in portion sized batches and whenever we are pressed for time at dinner we are just six minutes in boiling salted water away from a great meal.

All in all these ravioli were well received and made for a great addition to our family’s holiday meal. What special things or family traditions do you have for your holiday table?