17 August 2016

At home with Sophia: egg yolk ravioli (almost)

| Sophia Carlini
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ricardos

I normally only ever post recipes that are successful because most of the time the recipes I make do work out. They might not always be as amazing as I had hoped but they normally have some resemblance to the picture attached to the recipe.

There is nothing worse than finding a recipe you want to try, considering it for some time because it seems complex, going out to buy all of the ingredients and then spending hours on it, only for it to be an absolute flop.

You might not believe it but this happens to me more often than I would like. I’m going to sound like a huge sook, but I find it overwhelming when I have to throw an entire meal in the bin.

I have recently found myself saving a heap of egg yolks; I make thousands of meringue drops for my little coffee shop in the city and I just feel horrible wasting the egg yolks. I have been storing them in my fridge for a little while now, waiting for an opportunity to find a recipe to use them up.

In an attempt to not waste the yolks, I’ve spent a bit of time Googling egg yolk recipes, and I have to say, there aren’t a lot of options. I even went out on Facebook and offered the yolks to fellow cooks, but no one wanted them. The best and most efficient recipe I could find was lemon curd but what am I going to with a whole bunch of lemon curd?

And then I stumbled across this Martha Stewart recipe for egg yolk ravioli. I’ve eaten a version of this at 86 before and absolutely loved it. I was excited; I even had a pasta machine in storage somewhere that I would pull out for the occasion.

I started the recipe by making my pasta dough; flour, eggs and olive oil. While the pasta was resting, I attempted to make the spinach and ricotta filling. Here’s a hot tip for you; don’t be lazy! Follow the recipe! I thought I was being clever when I decided to throw it all into my blender, until it go stuck and I had to pull it all out and chop it up anyway. You can already see that I wasn’t off to a good start.

So my ricotta filling was made and my pasta had been resting for an hour. As I started unpacking my pasta machine from its box, I quickly realised that it wasn’t the kind of pasta machine I needed. I was after a machine that rolls the dough out into sheets; my machine only makes shaped pasta, like shells and spirals. At this stage I was ready to give up. I had two options; go out and buy a pasta machine especially for this – let’s be honest, I would probably never use it again – or I could hand roll it. And so off I went to get my rolling pin.

I obviously had not kneaded my dough very well because it was not elastic at all; it was so hard to roll out that I was seriously contemplating dumping it in the bin there and then. Once it was rolled out as thin as I could get it, I followed the next steps of the recipe; piping the ricotta filling in a circle and then placing a single egg yolk in the centre

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A few egg yolks broke as I was spooning them into the centre; I just scraped them off and started again. I had enough egg yolks so it was fine. Finally I had these beautiful little egg and ricotta piles. I felt relieved that I was almost at the end; all I needed to do now was put the top sheet of pasta on and cut out the ravioli.

I brushed the edges with milk and placed the sheet of pasta on top. Again I cut a corner that I don’t recommend you do. Instead of using a ravioli stamp, I decided to use a round cookie cutter. Although it cut out the shape, it didn’t crimp the pasta together and as a result I had egg yolk pouring out everywhere. The pressure from cutting out the ravioli made the eggs burst and because the edges didn’t seal, it all just seeped out.

Into the bin it went, and off to the bedroom I went to compose myself.

After all of that, we ended up having store-bought pizza for dinner; not quite the gourmet ravioli I had hoped for.

In my opinion, you become a great cook through your failures; it is absolutely the best way to learn.

I will try this recipe again; once I get the equipment that I need to make it properly.

I’d love to know if anyone has made this before and if you have any great tips, or even a better recipe.

 

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Sophia Carlini10:00 am 03 Jun 16

justin heywood said :

Ezy said :

Lemon curd was what came to mind when you mentioned excess egg yolks. Could you use it to make lemon tarts or other desserts for your cafe?

When I make pavlova I use the egg yolks to make custard 🙂

Yumm! how good is home-made custard?! Great recommendation 🙂

Sophia Carlini10:00 am 03 Jun 16

Ezy said :

Lemon curd was what came to mind when you mentioned excess egg yolks. Could you use it to make lemon tarts or other desserts for your cafe?

Lemon curd is definitely something I can have a go at – it would make some beautiful desserts. Thank you for the suggestion.

Sophia Carlini9:59 am 03 Jun 16

Ezy said :

Lemon curd was what came to mind when you mentioned excess egg yolks. Could you use it to make lemon tarts or other desserts for your cafe?

JC said :

Love to read stuff like this but this is why I am trying out pre-made delivered meals at the moment lol.

We are also trying pre-made delivered meals at the moment and I’ve got to be honest, I’m not loving them! I get fed up every couple of days and make something myself. Let me know if you find some good ones.

Sophia Carlini9:58 am 03 Jun 16

JC said :

Love to read stuff like this but this is why I am trying out pre-made delivered meals at the moment lol.

We are also trying pre-made delivered meals at the moment and I’ve got to be honest, I’m not loving them! I get fed up every couple of days and make something myself. Let me know if you find some good ones.

Alexandra Craig9:36 am 31 May 16

Ezy said :

Lemon curd was what came to mind when you mentioned excess egg yolks. Could you use it to make lemon tarts or other desserts for your cafe?

When I make pavlova I use the egg yolks to make custard 🙂

Lemon curd was what came to mind when you mentioned excess egg yolks. Could you use it to make lemon tarts or other desserts for your cafe?

Love to read stuff like this but this is why I am trying out pre-made delivered meals at the moment lol.

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