Serving suggestions:
- My tomato pesto
- Brown butter, lemon, asparagus
- Pesto Genovese
- Shallots, zucchini, green peas sautéed in olive oil, finished with basil
- Eggplant, tomatoes, capsicum, onion, oregano topped with crispy fried capers
- Beef ragu
Ricotta Ravioli
Ingredients
For the pasta dough:
- 400g “00” flour
- 4 eggs (240g total with shells or 220g without. If they don’t weigh 220g without shell, I add water or yolks to make up the extra weight)
- Semolina
For the filling:
- 250g ricotta
- Zest of one lemon
- 1 tsp sea salt flakes
- Cracked black pepper
- Optional: Piping bag (you can buy piping sets from Coles/Woolies, would recommend for ease)
Method
- You can make the pasta dough by hand, or in a stand mixer with the dough attachment.
- Mix eggs into flour until a shaggy dough forms, then knead until smooth and elastic (around 10 minutes).
- Wrap and refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.
- In the meantime, combine all ingredients for the ricotta filling and blend using a blender, Nutribullet or food processor. You can also mix to combine with a wooden spoon but you won’t achieve the same smooth consistency.
- Spoon mix into a piping bag, push the mix towards the tip of the bag then twist it around the filling at the top (this way you will eliminate air pockets), then set aside.
- Roll out until thin using a rolling pin or pasta machine (I go to the thinnest setting on the pasta machine).
- Once you have your first two long sheets, lay one out on the bench. Using a ravioli cutter or round cookie cutter with approx. 8cm diameter, lightly mark circles in the dough so you know where to pipe your filling. If you don’t have a round cutter, you can make square shaped ravioli with your knife or a pizza cutter.
- Pipe around 20g filling into the centre of each round (test it on a plate on your scales so you can gauge how much 20g looks like)
- Brush the dough around the filling with a little water to bond the top and bottom of the ravioli, and lay the second sheet of dough over the top.
- Gently use your fingers to press around each ricotta round to seal the pasta down, being careful to press any air pockets out
- Place your cutter evenly around the rounds and press down to cut ravioli (or, cut into squares using a knife).
- Lay ravioli on a tray dusted in semolina or flour, and place in the fridge until ready to boil, or the freezer for up to 2 weeks. Cut remaining pasta sheets into pappardelle or any pasta shape you like.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and cook ravioli for 2 minutes, then strain, toss through your chosen sauce and serve.