Ravioli
Ravioli are an icon of Italian cooking. These little stuffed pasta parcels can be filled with all sorts of things, then boiled and served with a sauce.
Ingredients
- 180 g flour
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 rolling pin or pasta machine
- Fillings of your choice - here, spinach and beef.
Method
Spinach and beef fillings
- Wilt the spinach in a little olive oil for 15 minutes so it cooks right down.Tip the spinach into a bowl, add a little ricotta and stir together.Chill until needed.
- Soften a chopped garlic clove and a shallot in a little olive oil.Add the ground beef.Chill until needed.
Making the dough
- Tip the flour into a bowl and make a well in the middle.
- Into that well, add the 2 eggs, the teaspoon of olive oil and the pinch of salt.
- Beat the eggs with a fork, gradually drawing in the flour from around the edges.
- Knead the dough by hand for 10 minutes.
- Shape it into a ball, cover it and let it rest for 30 minutes.
- Run the dough through the pasta machine to get two thin sheets. You should be able to make out the shape of your hand held behind the sheet.
- Flour your work surface before laying the sheets down. (This stops them sticking when you come to lift them off at the end.)
- Start spooning on your fillings.
- Lay the second sheet over the top to cover the first.Then, using the edge of your hand in a "C" shape, press around each mound of filling to seal it into the dough and push the air out.
- Use your pasta cutter to cut out the ravioli.
- Cook in boiling water for 5 minutes.
- You can also give them a quick sear in a pan with a little butter afterwards.
