The CookingBites Cookalong: Ravioli

Today I made what I am hoping is an original Ravioli recipe. Ravioli stuffed with smoked aubergine with a yellow pepper sauce. This time I made all flour pasta dough and added some tomato puree for colour (no eggs). The dough was very sticky - much more so than with the semolina added. I ended up rolling the dough with semolina on the surface.

However - I am really pleased with the result. The combination of the sweet fruity yellow pepper sauce and the smoky earthy aubergine is great. My tester pronounced it 'extraordinary' which is praise indeed!

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The ravioli look superb. I confess that I am uncertain about the sauce, but perhaps I would declare it lovely if I actually sampled it. And as far as I am aware, filling, sauce and pasta are all completely original. I have certainly never heard of making pasta using tomato puree instead of eggs. Not sure if I even have the courage to try it.
 
Ken Natton said:
The ravioli look superb. I confess that I am uncertain about the sauce, but perhaps I would declare it lovely if I actually sampled it. And as far as I am aware, filling, sauce and pasta are all completely original. I have certainly never heard of making pasta using tomato puree instead of eggs. Not sure if I even have the courage to try it.
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I don't think the pasta is original at all. Tomato is often used to colour pasta. Not in place of eggs...lots of pasta doesn't contain eggs in any case. For some reason most home-made pasta recipes contain eggs. I'm not sure why that is as it isn't a requirement for pasta. Look at the ingredients on your packet of dried pasta...

The yellow pepper sauce has turned out to not be so original either. I have just googled yellow pepper sauce and found this - from a Michelin starred Chef!
http://www.greatitalianchefs.com/re...184.251901070.1496164391-564720052.1450193359

My recipe was a bit different but rather similar. But I'm still hoping the overall combination of elements is original!
 
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morning glory said:
Do I need this? Ravioli rolling pin:
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Having seen your beautiful creations above, I'm going to say that: no, you don't need this (unless you're opening a restaurant and you need to crank out hundreds of your delicious-looking ravioli a day). I'm perfectly happy with hand cut ravioli. Did you use a ring mold for the ones above? For precision, though, you do need a replacement to your broken cutter.
 
Don’t know if anyone saw Great British Menu tonight – Micheal Bremner, top chef, made ravioli and was criticised for the pasta being too thick and being undercooked! See, if it can happen to him… Of course, I’m not mentioning that the content of his ravioli was completely fluid and I have absolutely no idea how on earth you do that. Plus, he had an interesting technique, forming his ravioli with lots of flat seam round the filling and then trimming the excess back just before he cooked them.
 
Ken Natton said:
Don’t know if anyone saw Great British Menu tonight – Micheal Bremner, top chef, made ravioli and was criticised for the pasta being too thick and being undercooked! See, if it can happen to him… Of course, I’m not mentioning that the content of his ravioli was completely fluid and I have absolutely no idea how on earth you do that. Plus, he had an interesting technique, forming his ravioli with lots of flat seam round the filling and then trimming the excess back just before he cooked them.
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Spoiler alert! I am watching it recorded so haven't seen that episode yet. But I think I'm about to have to watch it.

Ken Natton said:
Plus, he had an interesting technique, forming his ravioli with lots of flat seam round the filling and then trimming the excess back just before he cooked them.
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I did that with the round pasta above (more by accident than design). See my next post.
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
Having seen your beautiful creations above, I'm going to say that: no, you don't need this (unless you're opening a restaurant and you need to crank out hundreds of your delicious-looking ravioli a day). I'm perfectly happy with hand cut ravioli. Did you use a ring mold for the ones above? For precision, though, you do need a replacement to your broken cutter.
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I used a fluted pastry cutter which produced ragged results. So I then trimmed them down with a round cutter. By accident I did what the chef described by @Ken Natton did.
 
I made ravioli tonight for my dinner! I stuffed it with the last few bits of my purple sprouting broccoli and my home-made ricotta, and topped it all off with a tomato sauce made from roughly chopped tomatoes, lots of onion and garlic, and plenty of olive oil with some fresh basil. I rolled the dough with my pasta maker, finishing with the finest setting, but all attempts to cut them nicely failed. I only had pastry cutters and mine flatly refused to cut through the dough for some strange reason, and the ones I inherited from my Mum (bought in the late 1920s!) were too small, so in the end I just used a sharp knife. Only one came apart but even that was redeemable, and they tasted delicious, even if they didn't look brilliant and weren't all the same size. BTW the dough was just 00 flour and an egg, as I'm having semolina later.

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LadyBelle said:
View attachment 7505 Well I bought the gear, but that's probably as close to the cook along as I'll manage to get. :D

On a serious note Tiger Stores are selling ravioli cutters for £1, just in case anyone is interested.
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How lovely! Heart shaped. I want one. But is that from Tiger?

This Cookalong runs extra time this time round to allow more people to join in - so you have until the 19th June. You just have to use that heart shaped cutter!
 
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I may just have found some 00 flour by the 19th! I'm having a really hard time getting hold of any. Can I use normal flour or is it solely 00 flour that I need? I've never made ravioli before. Or for that matter pasta either. But I have a house inspection on the 13th, so I don't know if I am really going to get chance to do this one... sorry.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
I may just have found some 00 flour by the 19th! I'm having a really hard time getting hold of any. Can I use normal flour or is it solely 00 flour that I need? I've never made ravioli before. Or for that matter pasta either. But I have a house inspection on the 13th, so I don't know if I am really going to get chance to do this one... sorry.
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I used normal white bread four in both the raviolis posted above. I find using a proportion of semolina with flour makes it easier to work with - anything up to half and half. If you haven't made pasta before I would suggest making a small amount in case if fails first time round; say 100g of flour/semolina plus one egg and just try making straight pasta. Roll as thin as possible and cut in strips. Its very quick to make and to cook.

You could try wholemeal flour but I suggest using white to start with. I haven't tried making wholemeal pasta but I suspect it would be much harder to roll it out thin enough without it breaking up. Perhaps I'll have a go.
 
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