Viva Italia...homemade Ravioli

I always wanted to make pasta on my own. And…last spring my granny bought me a pasta machine (Thanks for that, by the way!). Now I’m doing Tagliatelle, pasta sheets, Ravioli and all that great stuff on my own. It’s easier than I expected and as soon as you get used to it, it makes so much fun.

Since is fall time now, I wanted to do an appropriate filling for my Ravioli.

Pumpkin was the first thought…but my grocery store didn’t have any! Pretty odd!!

So I bought almonds and cashews and created a nut filling.

To cut a long story short…here’s the recipe:

First we have to do the pasta dough. This kind of dough is the simplest you can imagine.

Just mix 300g of flour, a pinch of salt and a bit of water. Knead together until it comes to a ball. Then let it sit until you prepare your filling.

Heat up a small pan. Put in about 50g of almonds and 50g of cashews. Roast until they get slightly brown. Add a pinch of salt and put them aside. In the same pan (again without any fat) roast about 150g of grounded almonds until the start to smell. Turn down the heat and add one tablespoon of cream cheese and one tablespoon of water. Cook until the cream cheese is completely melted and the whole mixture is creamy. Season with salt, black pepper, nutmeg, and rosemary. Let it chill while you prepare your pasta dough.

Portion your dough. Each piece should be a bit smaller than a tennis ball. Then roll it through your pasta machine two to three times to make the pasta dough smooth. Afterwards you turn down the thickness step by step until your pasta sheet is about one to two milimeters thick. Make sure to have more flour at hand to orevent the dough from sticking in the machine. Continue until every piece is rolled out.

Take one sheet, place about one tablespoon of filling (for each Raviolo) on it and spread some nuts on it as well. Leaving a little bit of space between each spot, you can do it as often as it fit onto your pasta sheet. Then take another pasta sheet and cover the filling with it.

Remove excess air by pressing down carefully. (Otherwise your Ravioli gonna pop open while cooking them.) Afterwards take a cookie cutter and cut out your Ravioli. Press down the edges again to seal your Raviolo.

Bring a big pot of water to a boil and put in your Ravioli all at once. As soon as the come up, again take them out carefully.

Optionally you can fry them in olive oil afterwards.

 

Serve about three on a plate, sprinkle with some more nuts, black pepper and cheese.

 Done! PASTA ALLA MAMA!

Enjoy your homemade Ravioli.

xo

Andrea