When my new camera had come home I wanted
to shoot some glamorous dish and I was hunting on net for a fancy
dish. Ravioli was the beauty I decided to conduct my first photo shoot with. It
had come well that I tried it again for the local cookery contest in Little Millennium
School in our locality. You know what, it won the first prize and was critically
acclaimed ;)… I made a twist to the traditional recipe for accommodating it to
the contest theme; I used only wheat flour to make raviolis while traditionally
semolina flour is used for the recipe.
Serves:
5
Preparation
Time: 30 minutes
Cooking
Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:
1.
Wheat flour – 2 cups
2.
Dried basil – ¼ tsp
3.
Olive oil – 4 tbsp
4.
Salt to taste
5.
Ricotta cheese – 50 gm (I used cottage cheese)
6.
Parmesan cheese – 50 gm (I used cheddar cheese)
7.
White pepper crushed – ¼ tsp
8.
Tomato well ripen - 10
9.
Onion big – 1, finely chopped.
10. Garlic – ½ a pod, peeled and grated.
11. Dried
Italian herbs – ½ tsp
12.Pepper crushed – 1 tsp
Method:
Step 1: Knead soft dough with wheat flour,
2 tbsp olive oil, salt as per taste, dried basil with luke warm water. Set it
aside for a couple of hours.
Step 2: Prepare the filling by blending
together both the cheeses with white pepper. It should be in a cream cheese
consistency; I added little milk.
Step 3: Drop the tomatoes in boiling water
and peel off the skin. Crush them in a blender pulsing few times.
Step 4: Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil sauté
garlic and onion in it and add the crushed tomato to it. Simmer it until a nice
sauce is obtained. Sprinkle salt, crushed pepper and Italian herbs to it and
mix well. Adjust taste and turn off heat. This might take 30 min approximately
and you can prepare raviolis in parallel.
Step 5: On a wide working surface, soften the
dough and divide into 4 portions. Roll them into long rectangle like sheets and
cut each into 2” ribbons
Step 6: Now place blobs of filling on one
ribbon leaving 2” gap in between. With the help of brush or your fingers, wet
the rest of the surface of ribbon in which filling is placed with plain water.
Step 7: Carefully cover it with another
ribbon from one side to the other by pressing your finger in between each
filling so as to allow enough covering for the bulges.
Step 8: Once the entire ribbon is covered
work to get the sheets stick to each other while not allowing any air bubble to
stay in with the filling. Now cut the between fillings to get fresh raviolis. Alternatively you can use cookie cutter to get various shapes but it is meticulous relatively. Freeze them until use.
Step 9: To cook the raviolis, boil salt
water in a vessel and blanch the raviolis until they float on the surface. When
done, carefully drain all water and collect them. Repeat other batches.
Step 10: Serving is done as per comfort, look
appeal and taste. Drop the raviolis into sauce and mix well and serve on a
plate; or spoon enormous sauce in a shallow bowl and arrange raviolis on top;
or arrange raviolis and pour some sauce over like our idli - sambar ;) (The photographer in me is yet to mature, bear with me)
