Yay! I got a new pasta machine!

I got a new pasta machine a couple of months ago. A pasta machine is an absolute essential in any Italian household and I prefer the old fashioned hand roller machines as opposed to the ones with an electric motor. I just think you get a more intimate experience with your pasta plus it's a great arm work-out! Using the pasta machine brings back memories of Sunday lunches with the whole family where us kids would sneak into the kitchen and steal pieces of the raw dough that the "grown-ups" were making the pasta from- gosh it's so good!

I got a pasta machine for my 21st birthday and it lasted about two times of trying to make pasta, I took it back to the shops and got a new one on warranty and that one lasted another two rounds of pasta making before the cogs inside siezed (or something). These were just "el cheapo" brand machines so I thought this time I'll get something that lasts. I ended up getting one that is the same brand as my mum's pasta machine which has lasted her about 30 years so I figure it must be a good one. I honestly do not think that they have done much to the design in the last 30 years as mine looks exactly like my mum's. 

My new pasta machine.

I thought I would share with you the recipe for my ravioli in lemon, chilli sauce. This is the recipe I made for my Dine At Mine that I wrote about in my last post. When I was a kid, ravioli was by far my favourite meal. We would only get it on special occasions but gosh, when we did get it, it was soooo good! I loved it so much that I wanted to try and grow a ravioli tree and more than a few times, I kept the last piece of ravioli on my plate so that I could plant it in the garden in hopes that a tree would grow... It never did :( When my Nonna passed 6 years ago, I inherited her old-fashioned ravioli maker (many years later as it took a while to sort through all of her stuff) this is just as good as having a ravioli tree so once I had a pasta machine that worked, it was time to try and make ravioli.  

Nonna's "Raviolamp".

First things first, we had to make the ravioli filling. I chose a spinach, ricotta and chicken filling. Saute the onion, garlic, and spinach together until it is tender.

Sautee the veggies.

Then add the chicken and fry until cooked through.

Add the chicken.

Puree the mixture with the ricotta cheese and parmesan in a food processor until it is smooth. Set aside while you prepare the pasta.

Smooth mixture.

To prepare the pasta measure out 500 g of flour (I used 00-flour) and then make a well in the centre. Put the eggs into the centre of the well and start to mix the flour in slowly bringing in flour from the outer edges until you have a ball of dough. Knead the dough for around 20 minutes or until it is elastic and smooth or when you push it with your finger, it bounces back. Leave, covered with plastic wrap or an upside-down bowl to rest for 30 minutes.

Flour and eggs ready to become pasta.

Resting the dough.

While you are resting the dough, you can prepare the stuff for the sauce. Juice and zest the lemons and chop the zucchini and broccoli.

Ready to go!

Once the dough is ready, cut it into smaller pieces.

Smaller pieces are more manageable in the pasta machine.

The beast!

Roll the pasta out to about level three thickness on the pasta machine and then roll it out to level one thickness. The pasta needs to be thin as you will have two layers in some places on the ravioli. Most importantly remember to flour EVERYTHING!!! You do not want to do all of this work just for your pasta to stick together again.

Pasta Sheets (back- number 3 thickness, front-number 1 thickness)

Flour your ravioli maker and place the pasta sheet on top. Spoon about half a teaspoon of your chicken, spinach and ricotta mixture into each hole in the ravioli maker. Brush the joins with a little bit of water and then roll over the pasta with the rolling pin provided in the ravioli maker this will cut the ravioli and you will now have nice pieces of ravioli. Yay!

Finished ravioli.

Now is the time to prepare the sauce. Fry off the garlic and chilli until fragrant. 

Garlic and chilli.

Add the veggies and cook until tender. You can add any veggies you like, I like to add green veggies as I feel like they go best with the lemon sauce.

Fried veggies.

Add the lemon zest and fry off for a few seconds then add the lemon juice and your sauce is ready to go.

 Finished lemon sauce.

 Cook the ravioli in a large pot of salted water for about 7 minutes. or until cooked. 

Cooking the ravioli.

Toss the ravioli through the lemon, chilli sauce until coated. Serve with heaps of parmesan cheese. Enjoy!

Chicken, spinach and ricotta ravioli in a lemon, chilli sauce

Recipe

Ingredients

Pasta

500 g flour

5 large eggs

Ravioli filling

250 g frozen spinach

250 g ricotta cheese

1 chicken breast, diced

1 onion, diced

1 clove of garlic or 1 tsp minced garlic

1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper

Lemon, chilli sauce

2 lemons, zested and juiced

1 tbsp minced chillies or 4 chillies, chopped finely

1 tbsp minced garlic or 4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

2 zucchini, sliced

1 head of broccoli cut into florets

Method

Filling

Saute the garlic, onions, salt, pepper and spinach until soft and the onion is tender. Add the chicken and cook until just cooked. Place the mixture into a food processor with the ricotta cheese and parmesan and process until smooth. Set aside.

Pasta

Measure flour into a bowl, make a well in the centre and place the eggs in the well. Using your hand mix the eggs into the flour gradually mixing in more flour from the sides until you have a ball of dough. Knead the dough on a floured surface for around 20 minutes or until elastic and smooth or when poked it springs back. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or an upside-down bowl and rest for 30 minutes. Cut the dough into smaller pieces and roll out to number three (you will want to start a a thicker setting and the get smaller until you get to number three or you will wreck your machine) with your pasta machine. Layer each piece on top of each other ensuring you flour well in between each piece. Roll each piece of dough through the number 1 setting (thinnest setting) and layer on top of each other again.  

Flour the ravioli maker well. Place one piece of thin pasta onto the ravioli maker. Place half a teaspoon of filling into each hole. Brush in between each ravioli with a little bit of water. Place another sheet of thin pasta on top of your filling and roll with the rolling pin until each ravioli has been cut. Place on a floured plate and make sure you flour in between each layer of ravioli. Set aside until ready to cook.

Sauce

While making the sauce, get a large pot of salted water on to boil. Once boiling, cook the pasta for 7 mins or until al dente. Drain and set aside to add to the sauce.

Fry off the garlic and chilli until fragrant. Add the vegetables (zucchini and broccoli) and cook until tender. Add the lemon zest and fry off for a few seconds. Pour the lemon juice over the vegetables and simmer for 2 minutes.  Add the pasta to the sauce and cook for about 30 seconds, stirring to ensure each piece of pasta is covered in sauce. Serve with lots of shaved parmesan cheese (it's important that it is shaved- it works so much better with this dish that way).

Enjoy!

Have you ever tried to grow a ravioli tree or something like it? 

Dine at Mine September 2013

This year we decided to host a Dine at Mine. Dine at Mine is an event that helps support Camp Quality which is a charity that helps kids with cancer and their families to have a happy and fulfilling life. The idea around the event is that you invite friends over to your house for dinner and they donate the money they would have spent going out to Camp Quality. The whole event was a lot of fun we had to design our menu and decide on what to make and then do some trials and then be ready for the big show on the 7th of September (election day). We ended up having 14 people at our dinner and made a whopping $730 for Camp Quality. 

We decided to do a five course meal comprised of recipes that we love but that we had modified slightly. Below is the menu from our dinner. Appetisers: Deep fried feta stuffed olives, deep fried anchovy stuffed olives, arancini balls with napolitana sauce, bell peppers stuffed with feta, asparagus with garlic aioli. Entree:Homemade chicken, spinach and ricotta ravioli in a lemon, chilli sauce. Consomme: Chicken consomme. Main: Prosciutto wrapped beef scotch fillet with mushroom ragout and mashed potatoes. Sorbet: Lemon and basil sorbet. Dessert: Macaron delice. Tea, coffee and petit fours.

Mr T and I spent the weeks before the dinner getting things ready such as the sorbet which could be made well in advance and the ravioli which we froze a couple of weeks before and then it was finally the day. We had set up the tables the day before so that we could focus on the food during the day. 

The table all set up and ready to go.

When it was just about time to start getting the appetisers ready, my deep fryer decided to blow up and take out the electricity on one side of the house. It left me with a charred finger and a bit shaken up but the guests were arriving thick and fast so we had to make other arrangements and decided to fry everything in pots on the stove which is not as quick as using a deep fryer but it definitely did the trick. The deep fried olives were inspired by something similar we had eaten out at a restaurant called Delissio. The arancini balls were made from our favourite risotto (pumpkin, bacon and mushroom risotto) and the aparagus and peppers were just to have a bit of something fresh on the table. I will post the recipe for the arancini balls at a later date- they were so good with a nice piece of melted mozarella in the centre! Yum!

Mr T and I getting the appetizers ready.

The entree was a pasta dish inspired by a recipe that my ex-housemate (Miss H) taught me- lemon, chilli chicken pasta. This pasta is delicious and in my experience, most people like it. It is tart, spicy and really light. I wanted to use this idea and do it a bit differently so, I decided to make it into a ravioli dish. I put the chicken and spinach into the ravioli with some ricotta and left the zucchini and broccoli in the lemon, chilli sauce and in my book, it turned out great. 

Lemon, chilli chicken ravioli.(Recipe here)

Next was a consomme which is something that Mr T had learnt during his chef's apprenticeship. You first make a stock and then you clarify it with egg whites and add extra flavour with mince and veggies. The main aim with this dish is for it to be clear and boy did Mr T do a great job. I find this soup amazing as it is so full of flavour yet it is such a clear soup. It is a delicate but delicious cleanser. Mr T has promised me a guest post on the recipe for this one so stay tuned.

Consomme.

The main was prosciutto wrapped scotch fillet with mushroom ragout and mashed potatoes. We chose to do the scotch fillet as we both love our steak. The mushroom ragout is a dish that we both adore, it has Swiss brown mushrooms, field mushrooms and button mushrooms in it so it is chunky and so full of delicious mushroom flavour. This time, upon suggestion from my friend Ms H, we put it in the slow cooker to keep it warm for the night- such a great idea. For the Scotch fillet, I first rolled it in finely chopped rosemary and thyme (my favourite herb) and seasoned with salt and pepper. I then laid out the thinly sliced proscuitto with each slice overlapping the next until the row was long enough to wrap the whole fillet. Next I tied it with string and baked it in the  oven. Unfortunately it was ready well before we were so we had to serve it a bit over medium rare. This dish is the only dish that we had not practiced prior to the evening what with it being huge and the piece of meat being worth $70 on it's own. The flavours still turned out fine and meat was still juicy so it was not a complete failure.

Me checking the internal temperature of the meat (the whole thing was huge!!)

The final dish (finished with some broccolini and crispy prosciutto).

For our friend who does not eat beef, we made chicken en papillotte which is chicken breast that is wrapped in baking paper with white wine and vegetables so that it steams itself. The chicken ends up moist and flavourful- a very easy, healthy and delicious dish.

The exciting part of the chicken en papilotte is opening the parcel to see what's inside.

The next cleanser was a lemon and basil sorbet- gosh was it good. The basil just added the extra depth to this sorbet, taking the edge off the sourness from the lemon and adding some great undertones. Unfortunately, I have no photos of this dish to show you but believe me, it was yummy!

Now what you have all been waiting for.....DESSERT!! I made a macaron delice which means macaron delight. This dish was inspired by a dish we tasted at the "A Taste in Time" dinner we had attended earlier in the year with the exceptions that it had mango and raspberry rather that lychee inside and we served ours with a white chocolate, raspberry crunch rather than freeze dried roses, raspberries and dark chocolate.  It was a two large macaron shells sandwiching white chocolate mouse filled with raspberry coulis and mango gel with white chocolate and raspberry crunch on the side. As you get to the middle of the mousse, you reach the coulis and gel which add extra deliciousness to the dish. The crunch was an extra side that added a bit of texture. 

Macaron Delice.

Finally we had tea, coffee and petit fours. The petit fours consisted of chocolate dipped cream cheese mints and palmiers neither of which were photographed on the night. The palmiers are the easiest things to make, you just get packaged puff pastry, sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar and then roll each edge of the puff pastry into the middle, slice it and cook in the oven at 180 oC until browned. Seriously, try it- you know you want to! They are so crunchy and sweet and moreish. Mr T and I polished off the leftovers in no time the next day.

All in all, I think our dinner was a success and everyone had a great time (watching the election coverage). Surprisingly enough, there were very little left overs- only a little sorbet, some palmiers and some cream cheese mints so we must have done a good job. Can't wait to do it all again next year! 

If you are interested in hosting you own dine at mine next year (during September) you can visit the Dine at Mine website to register. Thanks to Dr. Kenny for being our photographer on the night, it was much appreciated.

Have/would you ever catered for a lot of people?