Artichoke Ricotta Ravioli
I have an unhealthy, unaffordable obsession with artichokes. They are one of my favorite foods, and I’ve been known to eat them straight out of the jar, with the fridge door hanging open, at all hours of the day.
It’s not so often, however, that I get to work with fresh artichokes. They’re usually a treat saved for eating out - especially when I’m in Rome, where you can find them braised (alla romana) and fried (alla giudia).
Growing up, we only cooked them once a year, around Easter time. We would stuff seasoned breadcrumbs in between the leaves and roast them whole. It was a lot of work for little gain - to eat them, you had to pull off each leaf and scrape the breadcrumbs and tiny morsel of edible artichoke meat from the base off with your teeth, slowly making your way to the center, where you then had to cut through the hairy choke to get to the heart.
For this recipe, I wanted to practice cleaning and working with artichokes, as well as using one of my new ravioli molds from Imaikouba.
I usually prefer to form ravioli more simply, just putting filling between two sheets of dough and cutting circles or squares. This method is faster and can result in less scraps - but Imaikouba offers such beautiful designs to decorate your ravioli, that I decided to break this unspoken rule of mine and give the molds a try.
To make these ravioli I started with a 3 egg, 300g 00 flour batch of pasta dough. I purposely did not use my usual red yolked eggs here, because I found that a paler dough made the designs on the borders of the ravioli look better. While your dough is resting, you can start on the filling.
You will need:
4 artichoke hearts
1/2 onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
dried thyme and marjoram (to taste)
white wine (~1/4 cup)
salt and pepper
125g ricotta
50g Pecorino Romano
Start with your artichokes. I used fresh, so I had to clean them before using (you can find a nice guide on cleaning artichokes down to the hearts here). It’s totally fine to substitute with pre-cleaned and cooked hearts, in which case I would say you need about 2 cups/160g. But if using fresh, clean and then par-boil until the hearts are nearly tender.
Roughly chop the hearts and sauté with the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until the onions are softened. Deglaze with white wine and season with salt, pepper, and dried thyme and marjoram, and cook for another minute or two.
Remove from the heat and let cool slightly, then blend until nearly smooth. Add the cheeses and continue blending until you get a creamy, homogenous filling. Chill until you are ready to use.
To use a ravioli mold, you want to make sure your dough is both rolled very thin, and thoroughly dusted with extra flour. It’s really disheartening when the dough gets stuck in the mold, especially when there is a delicate design at risk of stretching or ripping, so the extra flour is super important.
After rolling out and trimming your dough sheets to manageable sizes, drape one loosely over the mold and pipe in your filling. Be sure not to overfill, as this can impede the sealing or cause rips. Add on the top sheet of pasta and roll firmly with a rolling pin to seal the two together.
Flip everything over and gently remove the mold from the now formed ravioli. Separate each raviolo from the others using a rolling pasta wheel or a round or square cutter. Repeat until you have used all the filling and dough. The finished pasta can sit at room temperature while you make the rest, if you are planning to eat them directly after. Otherwise, they can be stored in the fridge until the next day, at most.
When you are ready to eat, cook your ravioli in plenty of boiling salted water for a few minutes, until they are tender and the filling is warmed through. I served these in a butter, sage, and pinenut sauce, but they would also go well in a simple tomato sauce.
