Spinach and ricotta ravioli

Preparation homemade ricotta – 20 minutes + waiting time

First, we're making our own ricotta. It's super easy and super delicious. Pour the whole milk and buttermilk in a medium-sized pan and heat it up on medium heat until it has reached about 75 degrees celsius or 165 degrees fahrenheit.

Keep on stirring occasionally, you want the milk to curdle. When it has started to curdle, turn off the heat and let it rest for about 15 minutes. Prepare a fine sieve with cheesecloth in your sink, you can also use a clean kitchen towel.

Pour the curdled milk into the cheesecloth and add about a teaspoon of salt to the mixture while the mixture is still in the cheesecloth. Refrigerate until it's cooled off completely, you'll notice all of the moisture has evaporated.

That's awesome, isn't it? cause what you'll end up with is the tasteful ricotta! you can store this homemade ricotta in an air-tight container for up to 5 days.  

Preparation pasta dough – 15 minutes

If you're using fresh spinach, you probably have to rinse it with cold. Maybe even twice, to make sure all the sand is washed off. You can also remove the thick stems, depending on what type of spinach you're using.

Use a salad spinner to get the spinach quite dry. Heat olive oil in a large skillet and add the spinach, you have to add them in batches otherwise it won't fit, cook the spinach until it's wilted.

Bring them to taste using pepper and salt and let them cool off a bit. Now blend them until quite smooth. Use about 100 gram of spinach for your pasta dough and add the flour and egg.

Mix on medium speed if you're using your stand mixer until you've reached a dough ball. The dough shouldn't be too sticky. Wrap the dough ball with cling film and refrigerate for an hour.

Peel and finely chop the shallot and garlic clove. Roughly chop the pine nuts.

Finishing the spinach and ricotta ravioli – 15 minutes

Roughly chop the basil leaves and mix with ricotta, pine nuts, blended spinach, shallot and garlic and season with pepper and salt. Set the filling aside.  fill a large pan with water and bring to a boil.

Get the pasta from the fridge and divide it into 4 equal-sized balls. ROLL them through your pasta maker. For a detailed explanation on how to do this, you can check our howto here.

Place the sheets next to each other on your lightly floured work surface and divide the filling on 2 of the sheets, keeping a small space between each spoon of filling.

You can make them as large as you like. Place the other 2 sheets on top and use your fingers to (carefully) remove any air around the sealed filling.  use the pasta cutter to cut the ravioli into even squares.

If you like to see more detailed pictures on how to make ravioli, click here. COOK the freshly made ravioli for about 2 to 3 minutes, until done. The thing with fresh pasta is that you don’t have to cook it for very long.

For that matter, it’s important to keep an eye on it while cooking the pasta. You can also see if the ravioli is done when it floats to the top.

Serve with more grated parmesan cheese and garnish with basil leaves, enjoy!