Baked Tomato Ravioli

Once you get the hang of making pasta dough, I think you will get addicted to these little parcels of goodness.  My girls love making these and to be honest they are the ones who come up with the flavour combos.

If you don’t have time to bake, simply cook the ravioli for a couple minutes in boiling water and pour the tomato sauce on top or simply have with some olive oil and grated parmesan.  This recipe feeds four.

You’ll need

For the pasta dough

• 100g Pasta flour – OO Grade
• 1 large egg

For the filling

• 200g cream cheese
• Handful of fresh thyme
• 2 large red peppers in brine 
• salt and pepper to season

For the sauce

• 2 tins of chopped red tomatoes
• 1 small onion
• 1 large clove of garlic
• salt and pepper to season
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil

Equipment

• A pasta rolling machine
• An 23cm ovenproof dish

To make it

1. First make the pasta dough as it needs to rest for about an hour.
2. Put the pasta flour into a mixing bowl, make a well in the middle and add the eggs.
3. Combine slowly with your fingers until it comes together into a dough.
4. Knead the dough for a couple of minutes.  It will be quite firm – not gooey and soft.
5. Roll it into a ball, wrap it in clingfilm and then pop it somewhere cool for an hour.
6. Now make the sauce. Chop the onion and garlic finely and fry gently in some olive oil.
7. Once they are soft add the tins of chopped tomatoes, give it a stir and then let it bubble away on a really low heat with the lid on for about half an hour.  It should be thicker but still have some water content.
8. Meanwhile make the ravioli filling.
9. Chop the peppers into small half centimetre pieces into a small bowl and then add in the cream cheese so you’ve got a 50-50 ratio of peppers and cheese.
10. Stir in thyme leaves and add the salt and pepper to your taste.
11. Cover and pop this in the fridge while you roll out the pasta and make your ravioli.
12. At this point preheat the oven to 200C
13. Flour your work surface and the rollers of your pasta machine.
14. Get your chilled ball of pasta and flatten it into a rectangle shape.
15. Set the pasta machine’s rollers to their widest setting and then roll the pasta through the rollers.
16. Narrow the rollers by changing the machine setting by one notch and then pass the rolled pasta through the rollers again.
17. Repeat this process until the pasta sheets are a few millimetres thin.
18. Lay them out flat and then use a 7cm pastry cutter to cut your ravioli circles.
19. Now place a little filling in the centre of one circle and then put another circle over the top.  (see pics below)
20. Seal the edge down with a little beaten egg and then use a fork to pinch and flute all the way around.
21. Repeat this for all your circles
22. Prepare your dish for the oven. Pour a little of your pasta sauce into the bottom of your oven proof dish and then place a layer of the ravioli on top.
23. Drizzle over a little olive oil.
24. Pour over the rest of the sauce, sprinkle over some breadcrumbs and grated parmesan.
25. Bake for approx 20-30 mins.  The sauce will cook the pasta so make sure you add a little water if you’ve made a thick sauce.

Serve hot with some green salad! Instead of the red pepper you could use mushrooms, chopped spinach or basil leaves and pinenuts.

Dollop of red pepper and cream cheese filling in the centre of the pasta circle

Finished Ravioli