Pheonix from the culinary flames

The panacotta experiment was not successful.  So unsuccessful I couldn't even bring myself to write down how much of a failure it was.  Cooked cream should be straightforward, right?  Wrong. Needless to say I was feeling a bit dejected and not overly confident going into tonight's ravioli mission.  Not least because I have tried to make ravioli in the past using one of those little mould trays that someone once bought me as a gift.  The ravioli split and was watery on the first effort, and the second, and the third.  The ravioli mould went to the charity shop although I did keep the mini rolling pin that went with it.  After a long cooling off period (about three years) I decided that I could give it another go and just freehand my ravioli.  It would have a lot less finesse than the little identical ones but it might actually work.  First I had to dust off my pasta maker that hadn't been used in a few years and remember how to make pasta.  I found at least a dozen different recipes and methods on the internet so I decided to stop looking and just give it a go and I even surprised myself as after many minutes feeding pasta through the machine over and over again I was actually holding what looked like proper pasta in my hand!  I filled it with a spinach and ricotta filling and dinner was looking close.  A pan of salted boiling water later and for the first time I had accomplished successful homemade ravioli and I was pretty chuffed with myself! What do you think?

I had mine with some garlic and parsley butter I had knocking around and parmesan.  I knocked up a quick tomato sauce for the husband and dinner was served!


For the pasta:
2 large eggs, beaten
150g plain flour
50g semolina (optional, if leaving out just use an extra 50g of flour)


For the filling:
1 large bag spinach
150g ricotta


Egg wash


Cook the spinach in a dry pan until wilted.  Leave to cool and then squeeze the moisture out.  Add the ricotta with salt and pepper (I should have put some nutmeg or even a smidge of lemon zest but I forgot!).  Put in the fridge to firm up.
Mix the semolina with the flour either on a clean work surface or in a large bowl.  Make a well in the centre.
Add the eggs to the well and pull the dry ingredients into the eggs.  Work until it comes together in a dough, it shouldn't be too sticky but also not too dry.
Work the dough through the pasta machine on the thickest setting, fold the resulting strip of pasta into three and feed through the machine again.  Don't worry if it falls apart a lot at this point, just squidge it all together and keep going.  Repeat on each setting of the machine three times and you should have one long strip of smooth pasta.  The semolina will make it quite grainy but gives it a nice texture when cooked.
Lie the strip of pasta flat on a floured surface and divide in half.
Place large balls on the filling at equal intervals along one half of the pasta, there should be at least at inch of space in between the piles of filling.
Brush with beaten egg along the four edges of the pasta and also in between all of the piles of filling, this will act as the glue to keep your ravioli together.
Starting at one end, place the second sheet of pasta on top of the first.  It is important to make sure there is no air trapped between the two sheets so you will need to press around the filling to push the air out before sealing the ravioli.
Once you have a long strip of the two sheets of pasta with filling in the middle, trim the edges and cut into individual ravioli.
Cook in salty boiling water for 4-6 minutes depending on how you like your pasta, drain and serve.


I got seven large ravioli from this amount which was enough for both of us with some bread.  My ravioli were never going to be delicate but they were definitely tasty. Almost tasty enough to stop me wanting panacotta.  Almost.