Mezzaluna Ravioli with a Pork Rib Sauce

Homemade mezzaluna (half moon) ravioli stuffed with a filling of ricotta cheese, mozzarella, garlic, garlic tops, arugula, baby spinach and lemon zest. The sauce is a pork ragu made with country style pork ribs. Pork is our meat of choice in this dish but you could use beef short ribs or chuck if you like. The pork ribs have a flavor that seems to be most complimentary here. 
You will need a pasta rolling machine for the ravioli or you can roll the pasta out by hand with a rolling pin. 

First brown a few country pork ribs on medium high heat. Then add onions, garlic and rosemary. Cover and continue to cook on medium heat until it looks like this, about 15 - 20 min.

Add a can of San Marzano tomatoes with their juice.  Break the tomatoes up with your hands. Add half a cup of red wine. Use the wine you will be having with the meal.

Cover and simmer on low for two hours adding a little water if the sauce gets too thick. The meat will become very tender and easily broken apart/shredded with a wooden spoon.

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For the ravioli filling - 

We pulled this nice garlic from our garden a little early and can use the green top in this dish as well as the cloves. If you have even just a small space for a garden, you should try to grow some of your own garlic and a few herbs (basil, thyme, rosemary, flat leaf parsley) it is so worth it. They are easy to grow and maintain - just wonderful weeds!

The fresh garlic is very aromatic and since it has not been cured and dried, the cloves are not easy to separate so we just sliced and chopped the whole head.

Saute the garlic, some of the garlic tops and lemon zest in olive oil, then add chopped arugula and baby spinach. Saute until they are just wilted. Let cool and stir into ricotta cheese.

Meanwhile roll the pasta into sheets - setting #4 on a pasta machine. Cut circles in the rolled dough with a round cookie cutter or an inverted drinking glass. Put a spoonful of the filling on each round and fold over, Pinching the edges closed.

Cook the ravioli in mildly boiling water (not in rapidly boiling water) until they float. Just a couple minutes.

Then plate up and sauce with the ragu. Sprinkle with some of the chopped garlic tops and a little pecorino cheese. I used more sauce than I normally would with pasta because it was so good and the ravioli could take it!