Happy Valentine’s Day! Happy Carnival! Happy Lunar New Year! Wherever you are, there’s probably something to celebrate today!
In Italy, Carnival marks the beginning of Quaresima - the 40 days preceding Easter, a period of penitence and fasting. For this reason, Carnival celebrations are characterised by excesses: food is rich, sweets are mostly deep fried, each city celebrates with different traditions.
In my family we typically prepare ravioli stuffed with sweet ricotta. The sauce has traditionally large chunks of meat and spicy sausage.
To celebrate both Carnevale and San Valentino, I made the traditional ravioli, only heart-shaped and in a vegetarian sauce.
Slow-Roasted Confit Cherry Tomatoes Sauce
Pre-heat the oven to 150C.
Slice 500g cherry tomatoes in half and arrange on a baking tray.
Season with extra virgin olive oil, salt, dried thyme and marjoram, and a little sugar.
Bake for 2 hours.
Reserve a few tomatoes to decorate the plate and transfer the rest to a blender, pulsing a couple of times to obtain a chunky sauce. Set aside.
Crispy fried sage:
In a small pan, heat 1/3 cup sunflower oil and when it’s hot but not smoking, throw in a few fresh sage leaves.
Fry for a few seconds, until crispy and transfer on kitchen paper to drain excess oil.
Sweet Ricotta Ravioli:
For the filling, in a bowl mix the following, then transfer to the fridge:
250g ricotta
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 tsp black pepper
Make the dough by mixing:
200g durum wheat flour (semola di grano duro)
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
Rest the dough, covered, for 20 minutes, then roll into 4 equal rectangles of about 1mm thickness, using either a rolling pin or a pasta machine.
Take the filling out of the fridge and spoon it, 1 tsp at a time, onto the dough leaving a few cm space in between. Fold the dough onto itself and using a ravioli cutter, cut into the desired shapes. I used heart-shaped cutter.
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook the ravioli for 30 seconds or until they float on top. Garnish with the sauce, reserved tomatoes and crispy sage.
Buon appetito!
Word of the Day
Cuore
(Heart, pronounced cuò·re)
