How To: Make Fresh Ravioli at Home 🏠

Anyone who knows me knows that lactose is not always my greatest friend. They also know that ravjul is one of my favourite dishes in the world, and not even gut-wrenching pain in my belly would stop me from eating tuzzana u nofs. 🤤

However, one day, my mother, obviously unhappy with my pain, decided to make me fresh homemade ravioli using Benna’s lactose-free ricotta (thank you, Benna, for your lactose-free creations, and thank you mum). She made them from scratch using a family recipe and I devoured the entire plate. Next thing you know, I found myself asking my mum to show me how to make ravioli myself and we spent an entire Sunday morning making them together. Here’s what went down:

You don’t need much

To make the ravioli pastry, all you need is 500g plain flour, 500g semolina, a pinch of salt, and water. I didn’t really measure the water - I just added bit by bit until the dough started to form. The dough binds easily and it will not be super soft because it needs to hold about a teaspoon of ricotta inside.

Ravioli dough ready to be rolled.

Once the dough has formed, set it aside because it’s time to start working on the filling! This is not rocket science. All you need to do here is mix the ingredients - ricotta, egg, parsley, salt, and pepper - and your filling is done. 🧂

Ricotta filling for the ravioli.

Get your elbow grease going

The next step involves a lot of action. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and start rolling! With a rolling pin, apply some pressure and roll the dough into an evenly flat shape. The dough needs to be around a quarter to a half of a centimetre thick.

Roll away!

Now, what you’ll need to do is have a glass of water and chill for a bit because you’re probably a little tired after all that rolling.

It’s time to cut shapes! Whether you have a cookie-cutter or not is not a problem. In fact, we didn’t have cookie-cutters and we used a glass - not too wide, not too narrow. Cut as many shapes as you can. Since we used a glass, our shapes were circles, so our ravioli would be in the shape of a half-moon. You will end up with a bit of extra dough, which you can knead, roll, and cut again to make even more ravioli! 🌙 

Making circles. So many circles!

Fill ‘em up

Place about ¾ of a teaspoon of filling in each circle of dough and fold the dough so that the filling is covered.

Starting to get exciting!

To seal the dough, you will need to brush half of the outer lining of the dough circle with a bit of water so that the dough binds together. Next, press lightly with a back-side of a fork to create a linear pattern. Keep going until you’ve used up all of the dough.

Tucking in the ricotta and getting the ravioli ready for a warm bath. Try to avoid ricotta spilling out!

And voila! Your ravioli are ready to be cooked. You can either cook them instantly by boiling them until they float to the top, leave them in the fridge for up to one day, or else refrigerate for up to 3 months.

For the sauce, we made a traditional Maltese sauce using 3 large cloves of garlic, a tablespoon of kunserva, and around 2 tablespoons of water. This is my absolute favourite - I love the strong, tangy taste of the garlic and the acidity of the sauce. You can take the acidity down a notch by adding a sprinkle of sugar.

One of my favourite meals of all time.

Making ravioli at home is quite easy, right? It does make a bit of a mess, but you do not need a lot of ingredients and it’s quite an easy process to follow. Besides, traditional Maltese ravjul is the absolute best, so it’s worth any kind of hassle it brings with it.