Spinach n’ Cottage Cheese Ravioli with Tomato Cream Sauce

So, did you have a plateful of fresh homemade pasta for breakfast? Oh, I just did! :P

Happiness is making a batch of fresh pasta in kitchen early in the morning, treating every single piece with love and care, slicing it to perfection, stuffing it with precision, seeing it dance away in a rolling boil pan of water, smearing it with your favourite sauce, plating it to your loved ones and eating it too.

Talking about Italian cuisine, it was sort of a love at first TASTE! I do not know if I enjoy the taste or the versatility more, but I do know I love anything that comes with a classic Italian tag; yes pretty much anything! :P My love for it is so strong that I dream of owning a little Italian café one day! But yes; I’ve miles to go before I do that.

So, these days I’m smitten with the idea of homemade fresh pasta, yes, totally from scratch! As taxing it may sound, it’s a fun thing to do with endless creative possibilities and the satisfaction of serving a plateful of absolute goodness. Making fresh pasta at home practically calls for nothing fancy at all. Some flour, a couple of eggs and some water, or sometimes just some flour and eggs or flour and water; yes, you heard it right! Now add in a wee bit of that woman power when kneading and rolling (those with pasta maker are lucky though) and once again, shape it into any type of pasta you wish to cook – lasagne sheets, fettuccine, farfalle, ravioli, tortellini and what not! 

A couple of months ago I tried Gnocchi from scratch and for a first attempt, it turned out great, but I never got around to posting it here.

Homemade Gnocchi from Scratch!

It’s been a while since I wanted to try Ravioli. Last week I had another grocery blunder and ended up with two huge packs of spinach; spinach ravioli seemed to be a great way to use up a good portion of it and hence Spinach n’ Cottage Cheese Ravioli with Tomato Cream Sauce.

But in the bargain, I came across a marvelous fresh pasta dough recipe and a great idea for lasagna sheets (up on my list next). It is simple to put together and once rolled, feels just perfect. Easy to handle and shape, and takes only 3-4 minutes to cook. Yes, fresh pasta cooks faster than dried ones!

So let’s get cooking.

Spinach n’ Cottage Cheese Ravioli with Tomato Cream Sauce

This recipe makes enough to serve four. You could half the recipe for two serving. Recipe adapted from here.

YOU NEED: 

Homemade Pasta Dough from Scratch

All-purpose flour, 2  ½ cups

Egg, 2

Hot water, 1/2 cup

Salt to taste 

Spinach n’ Cottage Cheese Filling 

Olive oil, 1 tbsp 

Fresh spinach, a big bunch, chopped

Cottage cheese, 100 grams 

Salt, to taste 

Tomato Cream Sauce 

Olive oil, 1 tbsp 

Tomatoes, 2 big chopped

Garlic cloves, 4-5 cloves, crushed

Cider Vinegar, ¼ cup

Heavy cream, ½ cup 

Choice of herbs 

Salt to taste  

HOW TO: 

Homemade Pasta Dough from Scratch 

In a large enough mixing bowl, mix together flour and salt. 

In another bowl of hot water, stir in eggs. 

Now, pour this over the flour and using wooden spatula, mix together until well incorporated. Now using hands, knead the dough into a smooth ball, which is not wet but slightly sticky; the dough should stick only to itself. 

Cover the dough in a plastic wrap and leave it so for an hour or so in room temperature.  

Spinach n’ Cottage Cheese Filling 

Heat oil in a pan and put the chopped spinach. Simmer and stirring occasionally, wilt the spinach well. As spinach wilts it releases water, so continue cooking until the water evaporates. This may take about 10-15 minutes. 

Once cooled, transfer this to a mixing bowl. Add cheese and salt, and mix well to make the filling.

Tomato Cream Sauce 

Heat oil in a pan and add the chopped tomatoes and garlic. Cook in low heat until tomatoes turn mushy. 

Add cider vinegar and herbs of choice, and bring it to boil. 

Cook uncovered for another 5 minutes until the liquid reduces to nearly half. 

Remove from heat. Once cooled, puree this in a blender. 

Now return the puree back to the pan in medium heat. Add the cream and stir well to incorporate. Once heated through (you need not wait for it to boil), add salt and adjust seasoning.

Assembling: 

Now, this is a technique for those who have no pasta rolling or making equipment, obviously, if you have one you are already an expert at it! :)

Now, unwrap the dough and divide the ball into two halves. In you are making it for two, cover one portion again and refrigerate it.

Dust the dough and the work surface well with flour and using a rolling pan, start rolling out the dough to form a thin pasta sheet. You can roll it out in length, keeping the width to minimum. The sheet can’t be too thick and it isn’t that difficult to get a think pasta sheet using a rolling pin. (I thought I saved the image for this, but so sorry, I can't find it).

If you can get your hands on ravioli mould, nothing like that, if not then try this method.

Slice the pasta sheet width wise into 1 ½ to 2 inch sheets. Now, place one heaped teaspoon of filling and keep placing it ½ to 1 inch apart from each other. In the picture above, I could put 4 such placements. Now, keep another layer of 1 ½ to 2 inch sheet over this one, and slice off squares covering the filling. Seal each square on all four sides using a fork (as shown in the pic below) and keep aside. This way, make fresh ravioli with the rest of the rolled out dough. 

Cooking: 

Bring large pot of water to rolling boil. Add ravioli and cook for 3-5 minutes and drain. 

At this stage, if you wish to freeze some transfer ravioli into freezer proof boxes and store. 

Serving: 

When ready to serve, add cooked ravioli to the sauce, heat it through for a couple of minutes and serve with your favourite garnish.