Egg-free Ravioli!

I've been thinking about making my own pasta for ages but never really looked into how to make it without eggs. I remember my mum used to make pasta when we were younger but then I think she got fed up of the mess created when using the pasta machine. Anyway, I did a quick search on google for "egg free pasta". Plenty of results came up so I picked two different sites; one used only durum wheat semolina flour and the other used 50:50 semolina and plain flour. The recipe I would choose depended largely on what the supermarket had in the way of flour. As it turns out the only option i the supermarket was "Pasta Flour" - a 50:50 mix. So I used the latter recipe but increased the quantities because more is better. Here's the ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups of pasta flour (half durum wheat semolina, half normal wheat flour, I used Doves Farm Organic)
- 1 1/2 table spoons of olive oil (extra virgin)
- about 5 table spoons of water (I added as necessary)

Here's the method in pictures.

Start by making a well in the flour. Into this put the olive oil and a couple of table spoons of water. Then start mixing with a fork, gradually pulling flour into the liquid in the middle until a paste is formed. Then star mashing all the flour together with the fork and add water as necessary.

Please note that the peanut butter plays no part in this recipe.




As you can see I ended up with a mess. Jumping in with my hands and adding more water when needed allowed me to gradually build up a ball of dough that was slightly sticky to the touch.








Here is the ball of dough. As per the recipe I was following I decided to leave this to rest. I'm not sure why. I didn't read the recipe in enough detail to find out if it says. Anyway, after about an hour in a sealed up freezer bag, the dough felt much better in its consistency.


While the dough was resting I made a tomato sauce to go over the ravioli and the filling.

For the filling I defrosted some frozen finely chopped spinach (not shopped or frozen by me) in a pan with a tiny bit of olive oil to stop it sticking to the pan. Probably used 7 lumps of spinach. In went a bit of salt and pepper. Some of the spinach juice was drained off once it was all defrosted. Then I put in a whole 250g tub of ricotta. I could've used Quark but it's really not the same as the full fat stuff. Once mixed together I put this into a bowl as I needed the pan for the sauce.

The sauce consisted of heating some olive oil in a pan with oregano and plenty of salt and freshly ground black pepper. When the oil starts spitting (careful, it hurts) I put in some not-so-finely chopped garlic. After about 30 seconds (don't want the garlic to burn) I threw in a carton of passata. I used the supermarkets own cheap stuff. It soon thickens up and tastes like you used the expensive one.

After the dough had finished resting I rolled it out as thinly as I could. This takes a lot of effort and I imagine it's a lot easier with a pasta machine. Half way through rolling Rachel informed me she has a pasta machine that was her Grandad's. Great, I can use that one day when we live together (to be honest it'll probably only be me that uses it).




I rolled it out in 3 lots to make life easier.










I cut these into strips using a pizza cutter (Park Tools - an excellent bit of kit). I tried to make pairs of strips, with one slightly wider than the other (a top and bottom). I added some filling onto the bottom strips and pressed on the top.

I then pulled out the pizza cutter again to divide up the individual ravioli.

The ravioli were then thrown into a pot of boiling water (salted and oiled). Cooking time was probably around 2-4 minutes. Difficult to say. I checked their ready-ness by testing how squidgy but also stiff the corners were. This turned out to be a good indicator.

And here they are plated up. Bit of sauce smeared on the plate first to prevent sticking and then plenty of sauce on top. No need for cheese due to the quantity of ricotta used.

Verdict? Very tasty. I was surprised at how good the dough was and how well it cooked. I'll be making these again but with different fillings. I quite fancy some sort of squash and walnut filling...that'd be suitable for vegans, not just vegetarians.

So there you have it, egg-free ravioli.