Today I am celebrating one of Italy’s greatest gifts: ravioli.
The beauty of Italian food is in the simple use of good quality ingredients: I made my recipe for ravioli with this mantra in mind. The filling is ricotta whipped up with lemon zest and a little seasoning and then the pasta is bathed in a two ingredient sauce. Serve only with Parmesan for a fresh and heavenly lunch.
I had taken a break from blogging whilst in my final term at cookery school as my life was consumed with puff pastry and exams: but I am delighted to be back here sharing my recipes and ramblings once again.
Serves 2
Prep time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Ingredients
- 100 g fine 00 pasta flour
- 1 large whole egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 100 ricotta
- zest 1 lemon
- 75 g butter
- small bunch of mint, leaves removed
- salt and pepper
- Parmesan (optional)
Method
- To make the pasta sieve the flour onto a board or a clean kitchen counter. Make a large well in the center, ensuring that there are no gaps in the “walls” of this well. Break the egg and egg yolk into the well and use your hands to scramble the eggs up. Gradually bring in flour from the edges to first form a paste and then a dough. You do not need to use all of the flour – just add the flour until a smooth dough has been formed that should be soft, though not wet, and a little shiny in appearance. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for half an hour.
- Whilst the dough is resting mix together the ricotta and lemon zest and season to taste. Put to one side.
- Using either a rolling pin or pasta machine roll the pasta until it is thin enough to read the newspaper through. Follow the instructions that come with your pasta machine but you want to pass the dough through the rollers until they are at the smallest setting to achieve a very thin sheet of pasta. Use a lot of flour at this stage to avoid your pasta sticking to any surfaces.
- One the dough has been rolled cut it in half so you have two slightly shorter sheets. Use a teaspoon to dot the filling roughly 1 1/2 inches apart. Cover with the second sheet of pasta and use your fingers to press any air bubbles out of the two sheets. Cut the ravioli out with a medium sized cookie cutter.
- Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and add the pasta to the pan. Cook for 5 minutes or until al dente.
- Meanwhile heat the butter and mint leaves in a frying pan until the butter has melted and infused. Once the pasta is cooked lift it into the frying pan with a slotted spoon and coat in the butter.
- Sprinkle with any left over mint leaves and Parmesan and enjoy.
Thank you so much for reading this post, I hope that you enjoyed it! Please let me know what you think in the comments as I love hearing from you and do not forget to follow me on Instagram, Facebook and and Pinterest (my username is wishtodish) plus subscribe on here to see more recipes and foodie musings from me.
Pretty ravioli … I usually go the browned sage butter route but a mint butter sounds good too.
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This sounds fantastic! I’ve never made pasta but I’m feeling inspired to try. 🙂
Thanks for the post!
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I love the idea of lemon and mint!
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This is lovely. Beautifully written and photographed. Your passion shines through and has inspired me to make some more home made pasta which I haven’t done for a while.
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Oh my!!!
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Loved your good recipe 🙂
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This looks incredible! Always wanted to try making ravioli from scratch!
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Delicious flavours 😉
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Looks amazing!
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Intriguing. I would not have thought of putting lemon and mint with a milk product, but that’s what’s intriguing!
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Fabulous! and mint butter? Never occurred to me!
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That looks lovely and refreshing (which is difficult with pasta and cheese!).
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Thanks for sharing your recipe. That looks so good.
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I’ll have to find out how lemon and cheese taste together 🙂 Also, “thin enough to read a newspaper through” was funny.
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Looks amazing!! Definetly going to try this!
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ı have had somethıng sımılar ın northern ıtaly ın the summer- ı lıke the way you break down the way to create the dısh!!
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Really like your blog – great photography, and this recipe in particular looks insane! 🙂
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Thanks very much
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The mint must make this amazing! I put min in my baked ziti on the rare occasion I make it. It adds a nice zing!
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