Italian Food Recipes

Artichokes are vegetables typical of the spring period and it seems that they traditionally comes from Liguria as this delicious Italian first course. Artichokes can be used for any type of Italian recipes like “Torta Pasqualina” that is a sort of pie or as a side dish here I use them to prepare the stuffing of these delicious ravioli. In this recipe artichokes are mix with ricotta cheese, Parmesan, parsley and marjoram. The seasoning of this first course is simply made with butter and sage, but if you prefer you can also prepare a sort of cream with walnuts.

INGREDIENTS (for 8 people):
FOR THE DOUGH:
600 g of Flour
2 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
2 Eggs
Salt
8 Tablespoons of warm water
FOR THE STUFFING:
9 Artichokes
250 g of Ricotta Cheese
1 / 2 Onion
1 Lemon
1 Egg
40 g of Parmesan
3 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
40 g of butter
Some leaf of sage
Parsley
Marjoram
Salt
Black Pepper

PREPARATION TIME: 1 hour

COOKING TIME: 20 minutes

WINE: Vermentino dei Colli di Luni Lambruschi (White Wine)

PREPARATION
Start with the preparation of the dough: place in a bowl the flour, the eggs, the water, the extra virgin olive oil and some salt,

mix all the ingredients until you obtain an homogeneous dough. Cover the dough with a sheet of film


an let it stand for about 20 minutes. In the meantime prepare the stuffing: clean the artichokes, remove the hard external leafs and peel the stems in order to use the tender internal part; cut in thin slice the artichokes and the stems and place them in a bowl with water and the lemon to not blacken them.

When the artichokes are ready, preheat the extra virgin olive oil in a pan with thin slices of the onion, then add the artichokes and cook them for about 10 – 15 minutes.


When the artichokes are ready, cut them in small pieces and place them in a bowl, add the ricotta cheese, the egg, the Parmesan, come parsley, some marjoram, salt and black pepper and mix all together.

Let salted water boil for pasta. With the help of a rolling pin roll out the dough to obtain a thin long pastry like this shown in the picture below. Place with a teaspoon some stuffing on the centre of the pastry,


then close the pastry over the stuffing and with a wheel for cutting the pasta cut the ravioli.




When water boils place in it the ravioli and cook them for about 7 – 8 minutes in the meantime melt the butter in a pan with the sage,


drain ravioli with a skimmer, place them in a dish and pour on them the butter, sprinkle with some parmesan and serve hot.
This is the result:

BUON APPETITO!