Carnevale in Italy is famous for all sorts of things being turned upside down; women become men, women become animals, naughty nuns run amok and, in Abruzzo’s Teramo province, ravioli gets an equal flipping with ravioli dolci di ricotta.
The freedom to satirise the pomp of supposedly unimpeachable institutions, combined with a rare opportunity for the egalitarianism that a disguise or masks lends its wearer, is obviously quite liberating, and in Abruzzo this freedom from the norm has been stretched into the normal confines of the delicious filling inside ravioli. Like the congregation dressing up as priests and festooned with inappropriate carrots, this type of ravioli people either love or think is a mini blasphemy, and it certainly does seem to divide our neighbours.
Ravioli dolci is a dish whose delicate ricotta stuffing is flavoured with cinnamon, lemon zest and marjoram, eaten either with a light sugo or sprinkled with more sugar & cinnamon and eaten as a desert.
Maybe cinnamon’s qualities were used for aiding digestion and bad breath that were badly needed on Martedí Grasso (Shrove Tuesday, though in this case “Fat Tuesday”), when you are supposed to eat seven times in the day. I can’t make up my mind if that was for helping you store up vital cholesterol reserves for your 40-day meat-free Lent, or to free your cupboards of temptation which may just break you if still stuffed with such yummy lovelies!
Ravioli di Dolci
Ingredients
- 400 gm 00 Flour
- 4 Eggs
- 1 Pinch Salt
- 350 gm Fresh Ricotta - sheep or cow or mixed according to taste
- 1 Egg Yolk
- 140 Caster Sugar
- 2 Tbsp Chopped Marjoram
- 1 Lemon Zest, finely grated
- 1 Cinammon Stick Finely ground
Instructions
- For the Fresh Egg PastaAdd the flour into a bowl, make a well, break the eggs inside the well, add the pinch of salt and mix until it forms a dough. Knead for 5 minutes until you feel it is smooth and elastic. Cover with a teacloth and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- For the Ravioli FillingAdd the flour into a bowl, make a well, break the eggs inside the well, add the pinch of salt and mix until it forms a dough. Knead for 5 minutes until you feel it is smooth and elastic. Cover with a teacloth and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.Prepare the filling by mixing the ricotta with the egg yolk, sugar, marjoram, cinnamon and lemon zest. Put into the fridge.
- Cut the dough into four balls and take one, cover the rest with a tea cloth. Roll it a little and then setting your pasta machine on the widest setting feed the dough through the machine. Repeat 6 times, folding the pasta into thirds and then turning it 90 degrees to the pasta machine before you feed the pasta dough through each time. When the dough is the same width as the machine, feed the dough through the machine, gradually narrowing the pasta machine settings, 1 notch at a time. Repeat until you reach the second last setting on the machine. Repeat with the remaining 3 dough portions. Place a pasta sheet onto a lightly floured surface.
- Place heaped teaspoonfuls of filling, in 2 rows, at 5 cm intervals onto the pasta. Leave a 2 cm border around the edges and then using a pastry brush, brush these edges with water. Place a second pasta sheet on top and press the edges together to seal. Use a knife or ravioli wheel to cut between the filling to make your squares. Repeat with the remaining pasta sheets and filling.
- Cook in plenty of salted boiling water for approximately 4 minutes, until you see the ravioli rise to the surface. Drain and serve with your preferred sauce if serving as a primo or secondo, or dredged with sugar and cinnamon if serving as a dessert.
Author: Sam Dunham
Sam is a very lucky midlife 'mamma' to A who is 12 and juggles her work as a self-employed freelance SEO food and travel copywriter and EFL teacher. She is the founder of the Life In Abruzzo Cultural Association, co-founder of Let's Blog Abruzzo. she is the founder of the 'English in the Woods' initiative, teaching English outdoors in a forest style school.
