Homemade Ravioli Recipe

This recipe guides you in making your own ravioli. You can use the dough to make other types of pasta as well, like lasagne, fettucini or even tortellini. The recipe Makes about 40 to 50 pieces

For the ravioli you need

The Dough

Weigh out the flour in a big bowl. Add a pinch of salt, nutmeg and turmeric. Mix them together with a fork and make a little well in the middle. Add the eggs to the well and whisk the eggs. Slowly add flour to the eggs until it gets hard to use the fork to incorporate the flour. Now we use our hands to knead it into a smooth, elastic dough. Weigh the dough and divide it in two. In case you multiply the recipe, do not exceed 250 grams per ball, otherwise, it can be too hard to handle.

• If the dough is sticky, add a little bit more flour
• You can test the elasticity, by stretching the dough.
• If the dough is too dry or crumbly, wet your hands and keep kneading
• If the dough is too soft add more flour and knead a bit longer

Ravioli Filling

The fast method would be to buy the ricotta and mix in the egg yolk, bread crumbs and truffle oil. But you can also opt to make your own ricotta. 

The Rolling

Flour the dough and roll it with a rolling pin into a square, so that it is thin enough for your pasta machine. Turn the rolling machine on and feed the dough through it. The dough should go through the machine without any extra pushing or tearing. If pushing or tearing happens, fold the dough together and roll it thinner with a rolling pin. 

Every time you feed the machine you decrease the distance of the two rollers by adjusting the dial. The dough is thin enough when it is about 2mm thick. If the dough is too thin it might tear when you cook it. When it is too thick it tastes like chewing rubber. If a tear appears, fold the dough and start over.

Pasta shaping

Flour your workstation and lay the pasta sheet on it. To get uniform ravioli, I use a ravioli stamp to mark the squares. You can stretch the sheets a bit to fit more pieces on it. 

Press lightly, each right next to the other, without any space in between. 

With the use of a piping bag (or a spoon) drop a dollop of your filling in the middle of each marked square. Make sure there is about the width of an index finger of space between each filling. 

Spray the sheet with some water, or brush it in between the filling. This will make the top sheet stick to the bottom one. 

Make sure the top sheet is big enough to cover the bottom sheet. You can always stretch it a bit more when needed. Cover the bottom sheet and the filling with the second top sheet. With your fingers gently squeeze around the filling to ensure the top sheet falls tightly around it. Push downwards to seal the ravioli. Take a ravioli cutter and cut out the pieces.

Place them on a tray lined with parchment paper and freeze until needed. If needed right away, keep them outside on the tray to dry out.

This Ricotta is great on its own. As a spread on a grilled piece of baguette or as a base for a  sandwich. You can experiment with different kinds of flavours by adding other ingredients to them. Only use real lemon juice and not lemon juice from concentrate. 

Put a strainer on top of a bowl or bucket. Line the strainer with cheesecloth, two layers would be fine enough. Use masking tape to secure the cloth to the strainer.

In a pot bring milk, cream and salt to a boil. Stir it to prevent it from scorching the bottom of the pot.

Stir in the lemon juice and let sit for 10 minutes. Gently pour it into the strainer with cheesecloth and let sit for at least 2 hours or overnight. To create more dense cheese, you can gently press out more of the liquid, but it will yield less ricotta cheese.

Variations:

• Truffle ricotta ravioli    

A definite crowd-pleaser. Fold in 20 millilitres of Truffle oil, egg and bread crumbs when the ricotta is done

• Fresh Herb ravioli

Add a variety of fresh chopped herbs like dill, parsley, thyme rosemary and/or basil. You can mix and match here as you please. Add chopped garlic and lemon zest for more flavour 

• Spinach cheese ravioli   

200 grams of spinach. Lightly wilted with some chopped onion and garlic. Puree it with one egg and some Parmesan. A pinch of nutmeg would also be a nice touch to this