A New Love: Making Ravioli From Scratch

RAVIOLI & ME

I’m strategically scheduling this post to go live as I’m running the Colfax Half! My ode to carb-loading! 🙂

I recently tried making homemade pasta, with a pasta maker and all, and I loved it. (It was also out-of-this-world delicious.)

Then, I graduated on to homemade ravioli, shaped with my bare hands.

You guys, I’m in love.

A while back, I had a long day that consisted of a 9-mile run in 30-degree snowy weather, followed by a 4-hour dance rehearsal, followed by the making of all the foods (the recap of that night can be found briefly here in this Outfits of the Week installment).

Well, that night, delirious, sore, and tired, we ventured into the unknown territory of homemade, handmade, without-a-pasta-maker Lemon and Goat’s Cheese Ravioli, from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty cookbook.

Without the pasta maker, the ravioli dough was a tad thick. No amount of rolling-pin action was going to solve that problem, so we just went with it. The guy with the muscles took on that challenge, while I added the delicious lemon and goat cheese filling and then shaped the pasta with my bare hands. This was the part I fell in love with and want to do again and again. How creative!

Some are ruffled; others are smooth.

By the time we were ready to actually cook the ravioli (and a delicious asparagus side in mustard sauce), it was 9:35 pm… which is entirely too late for how tired/sore an old lady like me was that day. Here, you see me lazily sitting by the stove with a glass of wine. Hey, whatever gets the job done!

The final product was DELICIOUS. It was almost too beautiful and painstakingly sentimental to eat. But believe you me, they were devoured.

We also made a boat load for the week for quick snacks and busy-weekday meals.

Here’s the recipe, should you dare!

LEMON & GOAT’S CHEESE RAVIOLI

Recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi

INGREDIENTS

PASTA DOUGH:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 3 medium free-range eggs
• 330g ‘00’ pasta flour, plus extra for rolling
• ¼ tsp ground turmeric
• grated zest of 3 lemons
• semolina

FILLING: 

• 300g soft goat’s cheese
• 1/3 tsp Maldon sea salt
• pinch of chilli flakes
• black pepper
• 1 free-range egg white, beaten

TO SERVE:

• 2 tsp pink peppercorns, finely crushed
• 1 tsp chopped tarragon
• grated zest of 1 lemon
• grapeseed oil
• lemon juice (optional)

To save a little space and to promote a fellow blogger, you can get the process here.

HAVE YOU MADE HOMEMADE RAVIOLI BEFORE?