Monday, July 2, 2012

Lemon and Goat Cheese Ravioli (GF)


Hello again! This first week after the creation of my blog I know that I will probably be publishing an abnormal number of posts. This is because I have been dreaming of my blog for so long and preparing for it by baking and cooking a variety of appealing recipes and taking pictures. I only just now had the time to get everything together and get my blog up and running. But anyway, here I am! and don't the ravioli look pretty? I was inspired to create a gluten free version of the recipe that I saw in the cookbook Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi. Again, I am still constanly in the mood for citrus because it just seems so bright and summery.


It was actually my very first time making ravioli. I know, it probably wasn't very smart to attempt to create a gluten free version of an already somewhat difficult dish. But I couldn't help it, it didn't seem very hard...



Yes, I was wrong. Despite the ravioli's tasty appearance, the dough became quite dry. I suggest that if you attempt this recipe, you always make sure to keep the dough under a damp cloth when not working with it. Its always hard because with my personal experience, gluten free dough can be very sticky, so it is tempting to keep adding flour to it or letting it dry out. But it will become very stiff if you do this.

Nevertheless, I still really loved all of the flavors in this dish. Tarragon is not an herb that I am used to cooking with, but the licorice-like flavor was really delicious with the lemon and pepper. The goat cheese that I used was pretty mild but salty, which made it taste more like feta to me.


Anyway, I hope to keep trying gluten free ravioli in the future. I am curious to hear if any of you have tried it. Any tricks or tips?

I will be back very shortly with more exciting and I promise more interesting posts to come.


Lemon and Goat Cheese Ravioli
makes about 4 servings

Pasta Dough

2 1/2 cups GF flour (like Gluten-Free Pantry's French Bread Flour Mix)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
5 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
grated zest of 3 lemons

1. Place GF flour, salt, oil, eggs, turmeric and lemon zest in a food processor. Pulse processor until mixture resembles dough. Remove from the bowl and place on a GF floured surface.
2. Knead dough by folding over and turning over and kneading for a few minutes, until the consistency is almost like bread dough (Since the dough was very sticky, I covered it and waited about five minutes before kneading).
3. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap or put in a bowl and cover. Allow dough to rest for at least 20 minutes.
4. Place dough between two pieces of wax paper, and roll it out like pie dough. Try to make it as thin as you can, but make sure it doesn't stick or tear when peeling it off the wax paper.
5. Using a ravioli cutter, cookie cutter, or the rim of a glass, cut out roughly 3 inch discs from the pasta sheets. After you cut the disks, cover them with a damp cloth, so that they don't dry out.

Pasta Filling

11 ounces soft goat cheese (I used Farmer's Goat Cheese)
1/3 teaspoon sea salt
pinch of chile flakes (I'm from New Mexico so I used lots of pinches :) )
black pepper
Ricotta cheese to soften (optional)
1 egg white, beaten

6. Once all the pasta disks are made, make the filling by combining all ingredients, except for the egg whites, in a bowl and crush together with a fork. If you don't like the consistency of the filling very crumbly, add ricotta until it becomes more smooth.
7. To form each raviolo, bush a disk with a little egg white and place a heaping teaspoon of filling in its center. Place another disk on top. gently press out any air and seal the edges of the two disks together. Make sure you cannot see a seam where the two disks meet.
8. Transfer the ravioli to a tray and leave for about 10 minutes, and then cover with plastic wrap until ready to cook.

Presentation

2 teaspoons pink peppercorns, crushed
1 teaspoon chopped tarragon
grated zest of 1 lemon
grapeseed oil
lemon juice

9. When ready to cook ravioli, bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Cook ravioli until they begin to float on the surface of the water. Drain and divide among four plates.
10. Spinkle with pink peppercorn, tarragon and lemon zest. Drizzle grapeseed oil over the ravioli and sprinkle with exta salt and a squirt of lemon juice.

Serve and enjoy!


Recipe adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi, and gluten free pasta adapted from Gluten Free Girl and the Chef.
























1 comment:

  1. Ravioli is definitely tricky! I always find, when I place fresh pasta dough under a damp cloth, that the dough becomes too wet and gooey. I think it has a lot to do with the level of humidity in the air, which varies a lot from day to day. In any event, you chose something challenging to start with, and it looks DELICIOUS!

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