I don’t know what it is about peas, but I’m addicted. Sugar Snap Peas, Shelling Peas, I buy them whenever I see them at a farmers market. Last weekend I made a fantastic Orechiette Carbonara with Peas and Pea Tendrils. This week I decided to try making a ravioli with peas.

I started with a simple pasta dough: 1 1/2 cups of semolina flour, 3/4 cup of 00 flour, 2 eggs, a little olive oil and water enough to get it together. I find that using a wide bowl with a low edge is great for mixing and kneading. I’ve tried making the dough with both my kitchen aid and food processor with mixed results. I find that hand kneading gives you better control over how sticky or dry the dough becomes. Plus there’s less to wash!

Kneading Dough

For the filling, I minced some shallots and sautéed them in olive oil. I added some dry white wine and the peas once they were soft and translucent.

Cooking the peas & shallots

I had some fresh local ricotta from an earlier meal (ricotta with sugar snap peas & olive oil!) but not quite enough, so I walked a nearby store and bought some mascarpone. I whipped the two cheeses together and added the peas once they cooled down. It ended up a bit runnier than I would have liked, but tasted great.

The Filling

Now it was time to roll out the dough into sheets. I was worried about the humidity making the pasta a little too moist, but the texture was perfect. Letting it rest for a while really goes a long way to making great pasta.

Rolling out the dough

When rolling out the dough, you start at the widest setting (1) and work your way to thinner, settings 5-8 depending on how thin you want it. I went to 5 since I was filling it. The pasta was beautiful! Look how thin it got! And yes, I took that picture one handed with the other supporting the pasta.

Look how long it is now!

I divided the dough into four pieces, rolled out each one, and then cut them in half, making a top and bottom. I didn’t do a great job of measuring the correct amount of space, but whatever. I spooned out a little of the mixture and wet the dough around it. This is where it would have been nice to have a pasta or some such instrument. Because the pea filling was so runny, I had to make really large ravioli.

Putting together the ravioli

They weren’t exactly uniform in size but they held up as I cooked them in salted boiling water. I minced some garlic, chopped some basil from my front porch and did a quick sauté.

Garlic & Basil sauce

I put a few of the ravioli in a pasta bowl, spooned some of the oil mixture, and at the last minute added some extra of the pea mixture. No meal is complete without a little parmesan in my opinion. The colors looked a little weird, but it tasted fantastic, especially with the salad made from our front porch.

Voilà!

Bon Appetit!

You can find more photos of my cooking extravaganza here.