Ricotta and Spinach filled Ravioli

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup flour

1 egg

1/4 cup hot water

1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix flour with salt. Stir water with egg until well mixed. In a bowl, combine flour and egg-water mixture together and mix until well incorporated.  Knead the dough until well-textured and firm.  The dough should not be too wet or too sticky.  It should only stick to itself, but not to your hands.  However, it should not be too dry,  either.   Make the dough into a ball, cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough stand for 1 hour at room temperature before using.  This allows gluten to work.  You will be using this dough in the instructions that follow below:

Ingredients for spinach and ricotta cheese ravioli filling:

1 tbsp olive oil


1 big package spinach (20 oz)


1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese


3/4 cup ricotta cheese


1/4 tsp salt

Ingredients for tomato cream sauce:

1 tbsp olive oil


2 big tomatoes


2 garlic cloves


5 sprigs thyme or more


1/4 cup white wine


1/2 cup heavy cream


20 grape tomatoes,

Salt

How to make ravioli cheese filling:

Heat olive oil on medium heat, add spinach and cook covered, stirring occasionally, until spinach wilted, about 15 minutes. Cook for 5 or 10 more minutes uncovered until all liquid evaporates.

Chop cooked spinach finely and move to a bowl. Add Parmesan cheese and ricotta cheese, salt to taste and mix well.  Add more salt if necessary.

Divide the ravioli dough into 2 equal halves and roll each half into a very thin sheet with a rolling pin.  Make sure to have flour on hand and dust the working surface or rolling pan when necessary, because the dough will be sticky. It’s important that the ravioli dough be rolled very thinly (paper-thin), otherwise ravioli will be too solid when cooked, because dough expands during cooking. Also it will be really hard to use the ravioli mold if the dough is not thin enough.

Once you rolled sheets of dough, shape individual raviolis. To shape ravioli, I use a very handy device, Ravioli mould/tray, which works great! I purchased it at William-Sonoma, you can see the picture of it below:

Here is how to use Ravioli mould:

dust the working tray with flour, lay a thin layer of pastry on the tray

press in the holes, fill the holes with the filling, without overfilling, cover with another layer of ravioli dough, which should lay flat all the way across the mould, using the rolling pins or your fingers, press, close and cut the ravioli, overturn the tray to let the ravioli come out.

When you are done shaping ravioli, bring a big pot of water to boil, add ravioli and cook for 5 minutes, then drain. Or, alternatively, freeze ravioli until you’re ready to cook them.

How to make tomato cream sauce:


Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat.  Chop tomatoes and garlic and add to the pan.  Cook covered for about 10 minutes until tomatoes soften.

Add white wine and chopped thyme.  Bring to boil and cook uncovered for 5 more minutes until half of liquid evaporates.  Remove from heat, let it cool for a bit. Then transfer to blender and puree the tomato mixture.  Transfer the puree back to the pan, reheat to medium heat and add heavy cream.  Stir until well incorporated.

Cut each grape tomato in half and add all of them to the pan with the tomato cream sauce.   Salt to taste and and more chopped thyme if needed.  Cook for 5 more minutes.

To serve, add cooked ravioli to the sauce at the last minute.  Allow both ravioli and the sauce achieve same temperature.   When serving on plates, garnish with thyme.