Disclaimer: Please note that as an Amazon Associate, Pasta et Al earns a small commission from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra, but will help to keep us operating. Our pals at Rio Vista Olives also sent us the incredible oil that we cook with in this post, and Ziggys Fresh have kindly provided the fresh fruit and vegetables. We use and love all of the bits and pieces that we recommend on our blog, and hope that you will too!
One of my favourite childhood dishes, that my Mum still makes when I visit, was peperonata. Ours was simply capsicums and potatoes, roasted with breadcrumbs and a good hit of olive oil: a magic combination. I’d always thought that it would be fun to capture these flavours in pasta, but had never quite settled on how to do it. Do you focus on the potato or the capsicum? And then, suddenly, I remembered doppio ravioli. Perché non entrambi? Our fillings this week are a cheesy potato mash and a rich capsicum pesto, wrapped in a silky egg yolk dough, and served with spun balsamic sugar, roasted tomatoes, and olive oil.
You might recall us extolling the virtues of the independent grocer a couple of months back, when we made our smokey nettle cappellacci; well our local Ziggy’s have come through once more. This week they very generously loaded us up with a box of fresh produce and a box of pantry staples to see what we could come up with. Now full disclosure, I was very sceptical. My past experiences of letting someone else select my fruit and veg, cough unnamed supermarket chains cough, have ranged from hilarious and absurd to downright disappointing. It’s like the packers delighted in competing with each other to select the most pathetic offerings of everything I ordered. Think a piece of sweet potato the size of my thumb, a head of broccoli the size of a large floret, or a bag full of half rotted garlic. So little Al and I were delighted to find a solid selection of top-quality produce awaiting us. Once the shock wore off, as we poked through our potential ingredients, I knew that it was time to turn peperonata into pasta.
The concept of doppio ravioli is simple: two fillings harmoniously sealed alongside each other in one piece of pasta. They’re also larger than regular ravioli, so not as fiddly as they sound. Given a carton of fresh eggs, we decided to make a rich, silky egg yolk dough. For this size serving (four people), you’ll need 15 yolks, so be prepared to catch those unused egg whites and store them away for some later culinary adventure.
Start off by tossing your veggies in olive oil, and then sticking them in a 200 degree Celsius oven until they start to brown and char; at the same time, boil the potato. Then both of the fillings are made by simply blending together their respective ingredients once the veggies have cooled. Load them into separate piping bags with medium round tips.
The pasta dough is combined and worked as usual, being kneaded for 10 minutes, rested for 30, and then quartered. Roll each of these pieces through the pasta machine’s widest setting a few times, folding over itself in between passes, before stepping it through to a medium thickness of 6.
These ravioli are large squares made up of two separately sealed rectangles. To form them, alternately pipe strips of filling onto 2 of the 4 pasta sheets, each long dollop about the size of a little finger. If it helps with spacing, mark your rectangles out in advance with the dowel that will later be used to seal the pasta. Each ravioli half should be about two finger widths across, and almost as tall as the sheet. Then lay the other sheets of pasta across the top, and pat down gently with your hand, before sealing firmly into rectangles using the dowel. Use a fluted pasta cutter to separate the rectangles into paired squares, and then transfer to lightly floured baking paper lined trays.
The spun balsamic sugar was actually a little experiment that worked better than expected. We wanted to recreate that flavour that you get from tossing balsamic vinegar into pan-fried veggies, letting it caramelise right before serving. But a little fancier. To make it, simply heat the spun sugar ingredients to 140-150 degrees Celsius, and test that you can stretch out tendrils of the melted mixture between two forks. We laid a heavy wooden spoon on its side with the handle hanging off the edge of the bench (and paper towels underneath), then drizzled the syrup along it so that it stretched down towards the ground. Then just use another wooden spoon, or even your hand, to roll it up into a loose nest.
If you make as much of a mess as we did, you’ll also end up with some fun frozen drips hanging off the spoon that will be perfect for plating.
Once you’ve cooked your pasta, al dente of course, plate it up with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a crack of black pepper. Right before serving, place the sugar nest on top, with 4-5 roast cherry tomatoes inside. And that’s it!
We loved the delicate hit of sweetness from the balsamic and tomatoes alongside our modern twist on peperonata, and we hope that you do too! As always, play around with our recipe, and even swap in your own favourite flavour combinations.
Buon appetito,
– Al & Al.
Equipment
- Air tight container for resting
- Pasta roller and cutter (if not using a rolling pin and knife)
- Piping bag with medium round tip (alternatively, you can use a teaspoon)
- Pastry/pasta cutting wheel
- Medium width dowel
Ingredients
Pasta Dough
- 400 g 00 flour
- 85 g semolina
- 15 egg yolks
- 75 ml water
- 2 tsp olive oil extra virgin (we used Rio Vista Olives’ Vintage Range Il Misto)
Potato Filling
- 220 g potato diced
- 2 tbsp ricotta
- 1/2 small clove garlic minced
- 1/2 tbsp butter
- small handful chopped parsley
- salt, pepper, nutmeg to taste
Capsicum Pesto Filling
- 1 medium capsicum
- 1/2 zucchini sliced
- 50 g macadamias
- 30 g pine nuts
- 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
- 1 small clove garlic minced
- splash olive oil extra virgin (we used Rio Vista Olives’ Vintage Range Il Misto)
- squeeze of lemon juice
- salt, pepper
Spun Balsamic Sugar and Tomatoes
- 20 cherry tomatoes
- 100 g caster sugar
- 15 ml water
- 10 ml balsamic vinegar
- 5 g glucose
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Mix the flours together and form into a well, adding the egg yolks, water, and oil into the centre. Bring together using a fork or your hand, and then knead vigorously for 10 minutes on a lightly floured surface. Rest in an airtight container, away from heat or direct sunlight, for 30 minutes.
- Toss the capsicum, zucchini, and tomatoes in olive oil, then spread out on an oven tray and roast for 10 minutes. Remove the tomatoes, which should have begun to brown, and then continue cooking the capsicum and zucchini for another 10-15 minutes until they begin to char.
- While they roast, boil the potato in lightly salted water for 15 minutes until soft. Remove, drain, and allow to cool.
- Prepare the fillings by separately blending both lots of ingredients, then transfer to two piping bags with medium round tips.
- Quarter the dough, and roll each piece through the thickest setting on the pasta machine a few times, folding over itself in between passes, before incrementally stepping through to a medium-thin setting of 6.
- To fill the doppio ravioli, alternately pipe strips of filling onto 2 of the 4 pasta sheets, with each long dollop approximately the size of a little finger. To assist with spacing, mark the rectanglular halves out in advance with the dowel that will later be used to seal the pasta. Each ravioli half should be about two finger widths across, and almost as tall as the sheet.
- Lay the other sheets of pasta across the top of the filled sheets, and pat down gently with your hand, before sealing firmly into rectangles using the dowel. Use a fluted pasta cutter to separate the rectangles into paired squares, and then transfer to lightly floured baking paper-lined trays.
- To make the spun balsamic sugar, heat the caster sugar, water, balsamic vinegar, and glucose in a pan to 140-150 degrees Celsius; test that it’s ready by stretching out tendrils of the melted mixture between two forks. If it is too runny, it may need to cool slightly.
- Next, lay a heavy wooden spoon on its side, on a bench, with the handle hanging over the edge and paper towels underneath; drizzle the syrup along the handle so that tendrils of syrup stretch down towards the ground. Then use another wooden spoon or your hand to roll it up into four loose nests. Retain any shards that incidentally form on the spoon for plating.
- Cook the pasta for 3-4 minutes, until al dente, before draining and plating with a drizzle of olive oil and a crack of black pepper.
- Immediately prior to serving, place a sugar nest on top of each portion, with 4-5 roast cherry tomatoes inside.
