6. Potato and Ricotta Ravioli

Another one bites the dust! Today we have an interesting twist on an Italian dish from my menu. This recipe came from a food competition I entered on Food.com called the “Five Ingredient Fix”. The contest entails that I had to create a recipe using 5 ingredients (I’m sure you figured that out lol) that had to include mashed or shredded potatoes. Interesting right? Not to mention challenging.

So I thought, why not just add mashed flavored potatoes to the already traditional ricotta filling in most raviolis? Although I haven’t found out if my recipe is a winner according to them, it’s a winner in my book and if you dare to try it, probably in your’s too! It’s different, interesting and surprisingly very good.  I have this as an appetizer on my menu, but it definitely could be an entree too! I made the filling mix (not the ricotta and potatoes separately) and pasta from scratch (true story!) If you dare.. give it a shot! It turned out for me, and I can’t tell you how impressed I was as I was doing it, thinking “wow, look at this, I can’t believe it’s working!” because by the way, I’ve NEVER made homemade pasta before in my life!  Check out some of the pictures I captured during the different stages of this dish.

These are the essential ingredients needed to make pasta for 2 people:

2 Egg yolks, 1/4 c. water (maybe more), 1 1/4 c. flour and 3/4 tsp. salt

Put the flour in a bowl and make a “well” in the middle.  Next, add the egg, water, salt and mix! Add more water if necessary and you’ll get this eventually:

 

It’ll be sticky, so flour a counter top/board right away and start kneading for at least 10 minutes. Consider it your workout for the day! You’ll want it to look like this:  Nice and smooth and elastic

 

Next, rub some olive oil on the top and  let it sit for 10 minutes. You can start with your ricotta and potato mix at this point. To serve two people,  just take 1/2 cup of ricotta and 1/2 cup cooked, flavored mashed potatoes, pinch of salt/pepper and mix together. Set aside.

Then roll out your pasta dough, flat, flat, paper thin flat, until it looks like this: (Try to make it as square as possible, I wasn’t as successful at that!)

 

Cut into 2 inch strips, take the filling and in small amounts spoon it on one strip 2 inches apart (they should be in the middle of the strip, not spilling over the edge!) Get some water and brush the edges of the strip with the filling on it to create a seal and take the identical, clean strip and place over the strip with the filling on it, pressing down on the edges to seal them shut. Cut the strip into individual raviolis.

Put into a boiling pot water that’s salted and has 1 tbsp of oil in it, cooking for 6-7 min. Drain the pasta from the water and top with pesto, tomato sauce, cheese.. whatever you’d like!  Here’s how mine turned out:

 

Delicious right? Well, thanks for reading, 2 down, 28 more to go! Sign up for email updates and share with your friends/family!