Ravioli

People think that Ravioli is complicated to make and that you need special equipment to make it.  It is easer to get the pasta thinner f you have a pasta machine, but we made it for years with just a rolling pin.  Another myth is that you need to have special flour to make a pasta.  You don’t.  We use plain (all purpose) flour.  Ravioli is so versatile and is great for stuffing with leftovers and anything that you have in the fridge.  You can serve it with a tomato sauce, a cream sauce or any sauce you want, you can air fry it and make it crispy and use it in a snack type meal, you can just stir it in melted butter and stir or in herb butters, or you can water down pesto to use as a sauce.

Making the ravioli does take some practice but the more you make it the easier it gets. We actually have special tools now that we bought in Italy and they keep the pasta shapes uniform but we could not be bothered to unpack it from where it is stored and so you can use a square or a round cookie cutter like we did in the picture.  You need to make sure that your filling is not too wet and will not run as it will make the past sticky and may leak.  It can not be too dry either as it is likely to split the pasta.

We filled ours with homemade ricotta and cooked spinach but you can fill them with anything including drained spaghetti bolognaise.  I like to fill mine with leftover chicken supreme, cooked butternut squash with herbs, cooked sweet potato with herbs and cheese, a mushroom filling, or beetroot and cheese.  You can even make sweet ones for a desert and fill with apple or other fruit.

Recipe

2 cups of plain flour

3 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon of salt1/2 tablespoon of olive oil.

Method

1.  Put the flour  in a heap on a clean surface and make a nest shape shape by putting a dip in the middle.
2.  Add the eggs, salt and olive oil to the middle.  We break the egg up gently with a fork but make sure the walls stay intact.
3.  Gently fold the flour into the middle using your hands and bring it into a ball, incorporating all the flour.
4. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes.  If the dough is sticky add more flour to your surface as you knead. Make a ball.
5. Cover your dough with cling film or place in a floured bowl with a place on top and leave at room temperature for half an hour.
6. Slice your dough into quarters and flatten one into a disc.
7. Roll out very thinly or put it through the pasta roller on level 1 three times.
8. With the pasta on the working surface, form a rectangle by folding the short ends of the dough into the middle and then fold the dough in half.
9. Roll out even thinner or put through the pasta machine 3 times on level 2, the same number of times on level 3 and once each on the next 3 levels so that you finish on level 6.
10. Put half of the pasta on to the floured bench.  Place your filling in blobs (about a heaped tsp full) on the pasta leaving at least 2 finger widths between each blobs.
11. Wet the pasta around the bobs and place the other half of the pasta on top.(You can do this with a proper ravioli maker if you have one.
12. Lightly push down around the blobs of filling to get rid of any air.
13. Cut out with a cookie cutter  or ravioli cutter, making sure that there is enough pasta around your filling to seal.
14. Remove the excess pasta and either seal the pasta with a fork or by pressing the edges together if you do not have a proper ravioli stamp.
15. Sprinkle a bit of flour on top of your ravioli to stop it sticking.
16. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes in boiling, salted water, adding the ravioli with a slatted spoon. We do ours in a couple of batches.