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    Pasta · Recipe · Italy · Reference page

    Ravioli di ricotta e spinaci

    ravioli di ricotta e spinaci

    Egg and semolina pasta filled with ricotta, spinach, Parmesan and pecorino, boiled and served with a slow-cooked passata. A family recipe of Rosa Bovezza, an Italian cook in Melbourne, from Rachel Khoo's Kitchen Notebook; it feeds ten and freezes well.

    Round ricotta and spinach ravioli with tomato passata, basil flecks and grated cheese on a white plate, in brown ink and watercolor.
    Editorial illustration of the documented recipe; not a photograph of a kitchen-tested result.
    Servings
    10
    Preparation
    1 h 30
    Cooking
    1 h
    Resting
    30 min
    Total
    3 h
    Difficulty
    Involved

    Equipment

    • Heavy-based saucepan for the sauce
    • Pasta machine (or a long rolling pin); semolina-dusted trays
    • Frying pan; large saucepan; colander
    Servings10

    Ingredients

    • Passata

    • Pasta

    • Filling

    Shopping list

    Method

    1. For the sauce, soften the onion and garlic in the oil over low heat for 4–5 minutes. Add the passata, simmer 2–3 minutes, add the basil and season, then simmer partly covered 30–40 minutes until thick.

      Timer · 40 min40:00

    2. For the pasta, sift the flour and semolina into a mound and make a well. Break in the eggs; mix the oil, salt and warm water and add them. Draw in the flour with your fingers until a dough forms, then knead 10–15 minutes until smooth. Rest it 30 minutes in a bag.

      Timer · 30 min30:00

    3. For the filling, wilt the spinach in the oil for 1–2 minutes, drain, cool, squeeze out as much water as possible and chop finely. Mix with the ricotta, cheeses, parsley, yolks, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Chill until needed.

      Why Wet spinach makes a loose filling that leaks through the pasta.

    4. Cut the dough into 6. Working one piece at a time, flatten it and pass it several times through the widest setting of the machine, folding it each time, then narrow the rollers one notch at a time down to the second-last setting.

    5. Lay teaspoons of filling 3–4 cm apart along the lower half of the sheet, fold the top half over, press out the air around each mound and seal. Cut, and set on a semolina-dusted tray in the fridge.

    6. Boil the ravioli in lightly salted water for about 5 minutes until al dente. Drain, spoon over the hot sauce and scatter with Parmesan.

      Timer · 5 min5:00

    Substitutions

    • Rolling by machine → A long rolling pin, rolling the dough as thin as you can see your hand through.

    Common mistakes

    • Trapping air in the ravioli: they burst in the water.

    Storage & reheating

    Freeze raw ravioli in a single layer on lined trays overnight, then bag them; they keep 2 months (source). The sauce keeps 2 days in the fridge (UK FSA).

    Safety

    Contains gluten, egg and milk. Parmesan and pecorino are made with animal rennet; vegetarians should check the labels.

    Allergens

    Gluten · Egg · Milk

    Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.

    Dietary

    vegetarian

    A family's year of tomatoes

    The recipe comes from Rosa Bovezza, whose family preserves box after box of summer tomatoes as passata to last the year, as told by Rachel Khoo in her Melbourne notebook. Ricotta and spinach ravioli are made across Italy in many local variations; this is a family version, not a regional standard.

    [1]

    Semolina dough, dry filling

    Bovezza adds semolina to the flour and a little warm water and oil to the eggs, which gives a firm dough that rolls thin without tearing. The spinach is wilted, squeezed and chopped before it meets the ricotta, and two yolks bind the filling. Pressed carefully around each mound so no air is trapped, the ravioli boil in five minutes.

    [1]

    How it connects

    Place

    • origin Italy In preparation

    Pasta shape

    Recipe

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