Ravioli with Ham, Burrata, and Peas

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Boar’s Head. All opinions are 100% mine.

Some of my family is coming to stay with me this Easter, and I couldn’t be more excited about it! My cousin and her two girls have never been to California before, and my Mom is escorting them. It’s been years since I’ve done the touristy stuff in the Bay Area, and I’m actually looking forward to revisiting some of the fun things that you’re too cool to do when you actually live here.

With six people in our house for a week and a celebratory dinner at home, I’m going to stock my refrigerator with a Boar’s Head Sweet Slice_® Boneless Smoked Ham. You can buy it sliced in the deli section, but I’m going to get the entire half of a ham. I love that it has the flavor of traditional bone-in smoked ham but without the bone, which makes it easy to slice and use for any occasion.

It will make meals so much easier while we’re busy sightseeing, and we’ll chip away at it all week long. I’m envisioning ham sandwiches that we take with us for picnics in the Marin Headlands or to the redwoods, ham-scrambled eggs for a quick breakfast to fortify us before heading to Monterey for a whale watching trip, and an easy way to put a gorgeous glazed ham on the table for Easter dinner. Boar’s Head has lots of ideas on their website, which you can check out for further inspiration on how to use this versatile product.

But I’m most excited to finely dice the Sweet Slice_® Ham for these decadent Ravioli with Ham, Burrata, and Peas that I’ve been dreaming up. I want to make a big batch of them for dinner one night while they’re here. My cousin is a seasoned cook, and her girls have always helped out in the kitchen (in fact, Angelina is the one who came up with the idea for our Peppermint Ice Cream Sandwiches). I think they’d really love to make fresh pasta together.

My family has always bonded over time spent in the kitchen, and cooking is a huge part of our lives. While homemade ravioli are a little bit of work, it will be so much fun (and will go much faster) with all of us pitching in and working together.

Maybe we’ll even plan a day around preparing for this dinner! We’ll start by taking a ferry to the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market, where we’ll have lunch and pick out all of the delicious things we need to make dinner. Then we’ll bring our haul home and spend a few hours together in the kitchen. We’ll set a nice table, put on some music, and have a simple meal that shows off the incredible food you can make when you have fresh, high-quality ingredients.

A few notes on the recipe:

You can always make your pasta dough with a stand mixer or food processor if that’s your preferred method, but I wrote the recipe to make it by hand.

The recipe calls for resting your dough 1-3 hours. If you want to make your dough any further in advance, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and store it in the refrigerator for up to 12 hours

We want thin dough rolled to almost as wide as the pasta machine, so we end up with wide sheets to work with. If the sheets become too long and are difficult to work with, you can cut them in half and work with shorter pieces. Width is more important than length.

To shape them, you can use a ravioli mold if you like. I wanted to be able to include more of the delicious filling so I made them free-form. You can cut your ravioli into whatever shape you like by using a biscuit cutter, knife, ravioli stamp, or pastry cutter. Even the edge of a drinking glass will work! And if you aren’t confident in the seal, use the tines of a fork to crimp the edges of the ravioli and give them extra reinforcement.

Don’t let the cooking water boil too vigorously, or you’ll increase the chance of the ravioli bursting. It’s almost inevitable that you’ll lose one or two ravioli during the cooking process though, so don’t get discouraged if that happens to you!