Ravioli

Tonight’s dinner was Ravioli, which is a favorite of Cecile’s.  To make the ravioli I use a ravioli tray Cecile bought on TradeMe. Our first attempt was with the dough made in our bread maker and hand rolled with a rolling pin. This was a bit of a disaster, we just couldn’t get the pasta sheets thin enough by hand. After we got the pasta machine I felt brave enough to give it another go. I went online to find different options and watch how-to videos. Turns out there are four ways to make ravioli; making each piece by hand (no show), with a special rolling pin, with a tray or with a special attachment to the pasta machine. The last option appealed to me the most, but they’re not easily available in NZ so I figured I’d give the rolling pin a try and ordered one from Amazon. At the some time I also ordered a pasta cutter. The rolling pin didn’t work out either. The way it works is that you spread out the filling between two sheets of pasta and then roll them together using the roller. This turned out to be messy and ravioli was small. So after the first attempt I pulled the old tray out for take two. Ingredients: Pasta 500g High grade flour 5 eggs Salt Filling 250g Ricotta 100g feta cheese 300g spinach Pine nuts Parmesan cheese Nutmeg Salt Pepper Make the pasta dough as per my earlier post. Mix the filling ingredients together in a bowl, adding seasoning and parmesan cheese to taste. Roll your pasta into sheets using the thinnest setting on the machine. Lay the sheet over the tray making sure that you cover all the edges and that you have enough of a tail to fold back over the tray again. Spoon in the filling then fold the tail of the sheet back over the tray. Pat the sheets together to squeeze out the air then using a rolling pin press the pasta sheet down so that the ridges on the tray cut the sheet. Don’t worry if you don’t get a clean cut. Peel out the sheet of ravioli and using a pasta cutter, cut them into individual pieces. From there move them to a tray that has a light sprinkling of flour.  Don’t stack them on top of each other or they will stick together. You can also put them in the freezer for a short time to stiffen the pasta and make it less sticky. To cook, bring a large pot of water to boil and drop in the pasta, the ravioli will float to the top when it is cooked. Take care not to over cook the pasta, it should be al dente. Drain the ravioli but don’t rinse it. To finish I heated some olive oil and garlic in the pan, added back the ravioli gave it a quick stir then put it in the serving dish and sprinkled with grated parmesan cheese. This will make enough for five adults.