Homemade Ravioli

If there's one thing I really miss in my little gluten-free world, it's ravioli. I loved them more than anything before I was diagnosed, bought them almost every week at our local market in Dornbirn and blissfully enjoyed them at home. Unfortunately, gluten-free ravioli aren't really available anywhere. And making them yourself is a culinary highlight, but also extremely time-consuming, so not something you'd do every day. So last summer, I organised a gluten-free ravioli session with my friend Johanna, who is also coeliac, like me. And here's the result...

 

 

logo

Homemade Gluten-Free Ravioli

Ingredients:

For the dough:

  • 300g light, gluten-free flour (Johanna's recommendation is "Mehl-Farine" from Schär)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp psyllium seed
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 TBSP olive oil

 

For the filling:

  • 1 handful frozen spinach (if you can get fresh leaves, of course use those)
  • 2 (or more) garlic cloves
  • 250g ricotta cheese
  • 1-2 handfuls grated parmesan
  • fresh Italian herbs (like oregano, thyme, etc.)
  • a few chilli flakes (to taste, depending on how spicy you like it)
  • salt, pepper

And in addition...


  • butter, olive oil
  • a few sage leaves
  • parmesan

Preparation:

  1. Defrost the spinach. In a bowl, combine the flour with salt and the psyllium seeds. Mix in eggs and oil and knead into a firm dough. Add 2-3 tablespoons of cold water, if needed. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and let it rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.
  2. In the meantime, prepare the filling. Chop the spinach and peel and finely chop the garlic. Heat up oil in a pan and steam the spinach with a little bit of the garlic. Let it cool down and drain with your hand (the filling shouldn't be runny!). Grate the parmesan. Wash, shake dry and finely chop the herbs. Mix the spinach with the ricotta and add the herbs and parmesan. Season with salt, pepper and chilli flakes and set aside.
  3. Roll out the dough until it's very thin and keep adding flour, as needed. Johanna and I used a pasta maker, but a rolling pin works just as well. Bring lightly salted water to the boil in a big pot. Cut out the ravioli with a cookie cutter - if you don't have one, just cut out 10cm squares with a knife. Put a teaspoon of the filling onto each of the dough squares, brush the edges with a little water and fold over. Press down the edges with a fork.
  4. Put the ravioli into hot water, briefly let them come to the boil, then reduce the heat. Let them steep for another 8 minutes.
  5. Wash and shake dry the sage. In a small pan, melt the butter, add olive oil and fry the sage leaves until crispy. Carefully remove the ravioli from the water, toss in the sage butter and serve with freshly grated parmesan.

Notes:

Tastes great with a homemade tomato sauce and some rocket. Or, if it's summer, just add fresh tomatoes, olives, capers, parmesan and rocket.

The filling can be changed according to taste and mood - one of Johanna's favourites is a potato and curd cheese filling.

I personally like the ravioli served with rocket and drizzled with a little truffle oil. And don't ever leave out the fresh parmesan.