Ravioli
Ravioli is a traditional Italian food. It is a filled pasta, where there is a filling inside a thin layer of pasta. Ravioli are eaten either with sauce or broth. Ravioli soups are also quite common in Italian cuisine. Classically, ravioli has a square shape, but other shapes are also not very rare. The word ravioli comes from the Italian word “small turnip”. The ravioli-like dish was first mentioned in Venetian documents in the 14th century. There are dishes similar to ravioli in many national cuisines, but nowadays Italian ravioli are also made all over the world. Most of the time, it is a restaurant or home food that is handcrafted, but nowadays ravioli has also gone into mass production and can also be bought in supermarkets.
I prepared my ravioli with two fillings and suitable sauces. Classic ravioli fillings in Italy are spinach and ricotta, seasoned with either nutmeg or lemon zest, however, the ravioli filling posted here is a bit unconventional, but the result was very tasty.
Perhaps the most challenging part of making ravioli is making pasta. You should use a pasta machine to get very thin pasta sheets. I used the thinnest setting on the machine to make the pasta sheets. This gives the ravioli a delicate texture and better highlights the taste of the fillings. Ravioli is a food that can be easily frozen and stored for a long time, so you can make more of them and eat them when you like.
Preparation time: 45 minutes to prepare the pasta, 30 minutes to prepare the fillings, 45 minutes to prepare the ravioli, 20 minutes to prepare the sauces, and 15 minutes to cook and serve the ravioli.
Level: Medium
Quantity: about 2×25 ravioli. The amount of sauce in this recipe is intended for one meal for two.
Ingredients:
Dough:
550 g durum wheat flour (Tipo 00)
6 medium eggs
A pinch of sea salt
3 tbsp olive oil
Minced meat-sun-dried tomato filling:
40 g of sun-dried tomatoes in oil, finely chopped
3 medium cloves of garlic, finely chopped
300 g of good quality pork-beef mixed minced meat
A small bunch of basil leaves, finely chopped
100 ml tomato puree
1 teaspoon of sugar
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 tbsp olive oil for frying
Gorgonzola-walnut-pear filling:
3 conference-type ripe, sweet pears, about 180 grams
40 g of walnuts, not too finely chopped
180 grams of gorgonzola cheese
2 medium garlic cloves, finely chopped
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 tbsp olive oil for frying
Minced meat-sun-dried tomato ravioli sauce:
300 ml tomato puree
A handful of chopped basil leaves
1 medium onion finely chopped
1 tbsp oil for frying
Gorgonzola-Walnut-Pear Ravioli Sauce:
200 ml of whipped cream
0.5 teaspoon of flour, dissolved in a small amount of whipped cream
40 g of parmesan
Salt and black pepper to taste
Serving:
To serve, about 30 g of grated parmesan for both types of ravioli
Ground black pepper
For Gorgonzola-Walnut-Pear Ravioli, use chopped walnuts to sprinkle over food
Garnish with basil or thyme if desired
1. Prepare the pasta dough. To do this, pile the flour on the work surface or in a large bowl, make a well at the end of the pile, add salt, oil and eggs. Mix it all and start kneading.
2. Try to overcome the urge to add water while kneading. The dough is dry and doesn’t tend to come together easily, but eventually it does. This takes about 15-20 minutes of kneading time.
3. When the dough is ready, be sure to leave it in a bowl covered with cling film or wrap the dough ball in cling film. The dough becomes easier to handle if you let it stand for at least 30 minutes.
4. While the dough is standing, prepare the fillings. To make the minced meat-sun-dried tomato filling, chop the sun-dried tomatoes and garlic, lightly fry them in olive oil and add the minced meat. Press the minced meat with a fork until it is fine-grained and uniform. Add sugar and basil and tomato puree, season with salt and black pepper. Simmer for a few minutes until the filling becomes drier. Set aside.
5. Prepare the gorgonzola-walnut-pear ravioli filling. To do this, peel the pears, remove the pear core, chop the pears into pieces. Crush the walnuts. Heat some oil in a pan, add garlic and pear and fry for a few minutes. Add slightly chopped gorgonzola cheese, stir until the cheese melts and add the walnuts. Season lightly with salt and add ground black pepper. Transfer the filling to a bowl to cool. When hot, the filling is liquid, but when it cools, it becomes usable for filling the ravioli.
6. Prepare the ravioli. Take a piece of dough from the dough ball and work through the coarsest setting of the pasta machine. Break the resulting pasta plate in half and work it through the machine again. This way the dough becomes nice and smooth. Work the pasta plate through the machine, constantly reducing the opening size of the pasta rolls to the finest.
7. Cut the finished pasta plate in half crosswise and place one half of the finished pasta plate on a floured cutting board or work surface. Place about 1 teaspoon of the filling on the pasta plate. The classic size of ravioli is about 4.5 to 5 cm, so leave about that gap between the piles of filling.
8. Brush the area between the edges of the pasta plate and the fillings with water, place the other half of the pasta plate on top of the fillings and start pressing the edges. Start with the gaps in the filling to allow air to escape the ravioli and then press the edges of the pasta plates.
9. Cut off the edges of the pasta plates with a sharp dough cutter, use the dough to make the next portion of ravioli, and also cut the ravioli apart from the gaps in the filling. This results in ravioli about 4.5 to 5 cm in size.
10. Place the finished ravioli on a cutting board lightly sprinkled with flour and freeze at -20 degrees C. In this way, the ravioli can be stored for several months.
11. When all the ravioli are ready, prepare the sauces. For the sun-dried tomato-minced meat ravioli sauce, finely chop the onion and fry in olive oil until lightly golden, add tomato puree and chopped basil leaves, season with salt and black pepper.
12. For the Gorgonzola-walnut-pear ravioli sauce, mix a small amount (10 ml) of flour in the whipped cream until smooth, let the whipped cream boil in a pan, add the flour and grated parmesan. Heat until the sauce thickens slightly.
13. To cook the ravioli, heat about 2.5 L of water in a saucepan, add a little sea salt, let it boil. Carefully place the ravioli in the boiling water, cook for 7 minutes.
14. To serve, put the sauce on a plate, place the ravioli on the sauce, pour some of the sauce on the ravioli as well. Sprinkle the food with grated parmesan, add walnut crumbs to the gorgonzola-walnut-pear ravioli. Add black pepper and garnish with your favorite herbs (e.g. basil or thyme). Serve immediately.
Ready!!
