Ok, I paraphrased a little. He did put the words “One of the” in front but the sentiment was that homemade ravioli is one of the best things to come out of my kitchen.
This happened in spite of many mistakes I made that could have been disastrous. Firstly, I switched pasta dough recipes mid-stream. I started with Jamie Oliver and 400 grams of strong flour. Then I realised he expected me to use 9 eggs – 3 full eggs plus 6 egg yolks! As much as I believe in paying for quality food, I just couldn’t risk 9 of my extremely expensive organic free-range eggs on a homemade pasta experiment that may or may not work out.
So I consulted Stephanie Alexander, the Goddess of Australian cooking. When I say Goddess I’m not using the media-snappy title that describes the way she cleans her fingers of cookie dough with her tongue, rather I’m according her the title of a higher being of culinary omnipotence. Stephanie, sensibly, recommended 400 grams of plain flour and 4 eggs. Alas my dough seemed too dry, probably because I used strong flour instead of plain flour, so I added another egg.
Secondly, I let the pasta dough rest in the fridge instead of letting it rest at room temperature. I’m a faithful member of the Stephanie Alexander flock but sometimes I’m a little flexible with how I interpret her teachings. I know she advocates leaving the dough to rest on the bench but I’m sure she meant an Australian kitchen bench on a moderately cool day, not a steamy hot Singaporean kitchen bench.
Fresh from the pasta maker
Despite my sins against Stephanie, things seemed to work out ok. The dough, whilst easy to handle (on account of being quite cool) was too moist for the pasta maker, but this was easily solved with some extra flour and a few run throughs on the thickest dough stretching setting. It all got a bit messy when I added the filling but in the end, everything looked as it should and tasted sensational.
The filling was a simple mix of roasted pumpkin mashed with some ricotta cheese with a bit of salt and pepper. As with my first attempt, I served the ravioli with a sage butter sauce. You really can’t go wrong with butter.
The new pasta maker experience was such a success, I also managed to whip up some linguini yesterday.
Fresh linguini
What shall we have for dinner? Freshly made linguini? No problem!
It’s what Stephanie would do.
Soundtrack: Florence and the Machine – Lungs
Steve said
Sounds and looks delicious. Nice photos.