I love pasta – my Italian heritage might be a long way back, but my love of Italian food, and my addiction to shoes, have remained strong! I absolutely love the versatility of Ravioli, in that you can literally put whatever filling that you want into the pasta parcels. I enjoy making my own creations, and this one is exactly that! I hope you enjoy it.
Ingredients:
150g Gluten Free Bread Flour
1.5 tsp (heaped) Xanthan Gum
2 Eggs
1.5 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tbsp cold water
50g Feta Cheese
2 tbsp Ricotta
Dried Chilli flakes (amount to taste)
Method:
Place the Flour and Xanthan Gum into a large bowl and stir well. Make a well in the centre of the flour and put the eggs, olive oil and water into the centre. Mix the ingredients together carefully with a knife. Once the mixture starts to come together, use your hands to finish combining the ingredients, kneading the pasta dough for a couple of minutes. Then wrap in food-wrap and leave for 30 minutes at room temperature to rest.
Once the dough has rested, roll out the dough on a floured surface, using a rolling pin, until it is thin enough to put through your pasta machine (I use an Atlas 150 Pasta machine). I trim the edges and the sides of the dough so that it makes a long rectangle, this makes it easier to pass through the machine. I find that with Gluten Free Pasta, the pasta sheets are thin enough if I put them through on setting 0, then 2, then 4 – flouring in between each.
Once the dough is thin enough, cut the strip into two lengths, making one slightly longer than the other.
Filling:
Mix the Feta and Ricotta together in a bowl. Add the chilli flakes a sprinkle at a time, and stir well – taste after each sprinkle to get the heat to your desired level – we all have different tolerances to chilli so this is a personal choice.
Once the filling is ready, lay the shorter of the two pasta dough strips onto a flat surface. Put a teaspoon of the filling along the dough for each Ravioli parcel, leaving space between each one so that you can use your pasta cutter to encase the filling. Don’t overfill as this could cause the parcels to split when cooking.
Lay the longer strip of pasta dough over the bottom strip, gently laying the dough loosely over the filling so that the filling wont be squashed out when you use your pasta cutter. I have chosen a heart shaped cutter for my Ravioli today. Dip the cutter into flour so that the pasta doesn’t stick, and do this after each cut. Gently place the cutter over each filled section to cut out your Ravioli shapes.
To cook, simply boil a large pan of salted water. Add the Ravioli and cook for 4 minutes. Gently scoop the Ravioli from the water and serve with your favourite sauce. I went with my home-made Tomato and Basil sauce (find the recipe on a previous blog post), and added black olives to finish.
The perfect Italian dinner!
