I wanted to post this recipe for two reasons.
1) Um…. yum.
2) To show you that you don’t need spendy equipment or tons of kitchen experience to make fancy pants ravioli from scratch.
Maybe you don’t realise this reading my blog but I don’t own a kitchen aid stand mixer. Or any kind of mixer for that matter. When I bake cakes and cookies and whatnot, I do it using my hands, a wooden spoon and maybe a fork. Yeah. It’s a workout.
I tell you this because it’s easy to read food blogs and think “oh but I couldn’t do that…”. Trust me, you can. If I can do it with my trusty wooden rolling pin and no fancy equipment, so can you.
Although I will say this: if you so happen to already have a pasta crank, please save yourself some sweat and use the damn thing. I built some serious muscle rolling out this pasta and it mine wasn’t quite thin enough. I’m not a martyr…it’s just the way it is. I truly believe you don’t need all that jazzy electrical stuff, but it sure must make things easier.
So are you ready for rich, creamy, bright goat cheese and beets and fresh-as-it-gets pasta pan-fried and sprinkled with poppy seeds for an addictive crunch? Yeah you are.
Beet and Chèvre Ravioli
adapted from this recipe
Ingredients
- 2 medium-sized red beets
- 2 oz. chèvre (goat cheese)
- 1 batch of egg pasta dough (recipe below)
- 1/2 tbsp poppy seeds
- 2 tbsp butter
Directions
- Preheat oven to 400F. Pierce beets a few times. Place in a baking dish and cover with foil. Roast beets until tender, about 1 hour. Remove from oven and let beets sit until they are cool enough to handle. Peel off skin. Grate beets into a bowl or chop with a food processor. Mix in goat cheese.
- Divide pasta dough in half (you should have 2 portions altogether). Roll 1 portion into even-shaped rectangles (or run through a pasta crank) until about 1/16 in. thick. Place spoonfuls of filling about an inch apart along one portion of dough. When there is no more room on the dough, dab a little bit of water onto areas between filling (or mist with a spray bottle). Place other portion of dough on top and press to seal. Try to work from the inside out, to avoid air pockets in the ravioli. Cut with a pastry wheel.
- Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add in pasta. Begin heating butter in a pan over medium-high heat. When ravioli have finished cooking (they’re ready once they begin to float), use a slotted spoon to transfer them from the pot to the frying pan. Sprinkle on some poppy seeds and fry until golden on each side. Transfer to a plate. Add some more poppy seeds and freshly grated parmesan cheese before serving.
Egg Pasta Dough
Ingredients
- 2 cups of all-purpose flour
- 3 large eggs
- olive oil if/as needed
Directions
- Sift the flour into a large bowl and make a well in the center. Crack your eggs into the well and using a fork, beat the eggs and begin to pull flour into the liquid.
- Once you can no longer mix with a fork, knead dough on a well-floured surface until smooth and elastic (should take 8–10 minutes and your arms will be…sore). If the dough feels a bit dry, add a little olive oil when kneading.
- Cover dough with a wet tea towel and let rest for 10 minutes.
This recipe will make approximately 2 dozen ravioli. We served ours with white bean puree and were stuffed to the gills.
