Won ton skin raviolis (Recipe)

I think I did pretty good last night with dinner. I made raviolis using won ton skins ($1.50 at the Asian Market for a packet of 80). Or perhaps I should call them dumplings since they're pseudo chinese. I had some extra won ton skins left over from my weekend experimentation with making siu mai (a chinese dim sum selection) and I didn't want to waste the extra skins. I also had to mentally prepare myself for these raviolis since I knew it would be very time consuming. And they were!

For the filling I used a mixture of 1/2 lb. ground beef and 6 bratwurst sausages. I took the skins off the sausages and mixed the meat together with 1/2 c. shredded parmesan cheese, 1 egg, 1/8 c. bread crumbs, 3 tbsp.Worchestershire sauce, 2 tbsp. dry oregano, 1 tbsp. dry basil, 1 tsp. garlic powder, 1/2 tsp. celery salt, plenty of pepper (I love pepper) and maybe 1/2 tsp. salt since the bratwurst sausages already have some salt in them.

Then I used a small ice cream scoop to get even filling amounts and used one skin per ravioli by folding it in half over the meat scoop, dabbed some water along the edge and pinched it closed. Then I boiled them in water till they floated, sauteed them in butter and served them with a sprinkling of more parmesan cheese and fresh pepper. My boyfriend enjoyed them, which is always a good sign.

For some greens, I made a caesar salad with Romaine lettuce, homemade croutons and caesar salad dressing. I'm a bit wary of using raw egg in my caesar salad dressing so I didn't include it, nor did I include anchovies, only because I didn't have any. For the dressing I put in the food processor 1/2 c. parmesan cheese, 1/2 tsp. minced garlic, 1 tbsp. Worchestershire sauce, 1 tbsp. dijon mustard, 1/2 c. mayo, 1 tsp. white vinegar, a splash of fresh lemon juice and some salt and pepper.

I do love Italian food, but making raviolis (or dumplings) with won ton skins makes it that much easier. It took me about 2.5 hours to make about 50 dumplings since I had to assemble and cook them in batches. Since won ton skins are a bit delicate, after filling them with meat, you can't just let them sit there for more than 10-15 minutes or so. The filling will make the skins moist, which will then make them fall apart when boiling. So I made them in batches of 9, given the amount of space I had in my pot of water and sautee pan. Here is a pic. Yum.