These colorful ackee ravioli are made from fresh ackee pasta. The filling contains ackee along with ricotta and parmesan cheeses.
What is Rasta Pasta?
The moment the words “Rasta Ravioli” came out of my mouth I started chuckling. Loving a good corny joke I though it hilarious and decided to run with it.
I could be wrong but I think Rasta pasta is a dish originally created by Footprints restaurant in New York. It was funny to me that a dish containing meat was called “Rasta Pasta” since for the most part, Rastas tend to be vegetarian. The dish however, has “rasta colors” and thus “Rasta Pasta”.
Rastarians revere Ethiopia and often include the colors of the flag (red, green and gold) in their attire. So when I made the Ackee pasta (click here to see all that goodness) and tinted the doughs with vegetable powders. I realized I had Rasta pasta on my hands and so Rasta ravioli had to be born 😆
How to color pasta dough?
To color the pasta dough for the ravioli. I use vegetable powders from Nuts.com.
To make the red dough, I added beetroot powder with the flour before processing the dough. And to make the green dough I added spinach powder. For the “gold” part I left the dough plain but turmeric could also be added to give a deeper color.
- Beet Powder - 1 pound bag
- Price: $6.99
- Organic Turmeric Powder - 8 ounce bag
- Price: $5.99
- Spinach Powder - 1 pound bag
- Price: $9.99
What's in the ackee ravioli?
I'll admit I didn't stray far from the contradiction. Even though the pasta dough is vegan, my filling contains cheese and is therefore vegetarian friendly but not vegan friendly. It could easily be "veganised" however, by replacing the ricotta and parmesan with your favourite vegan cheese substitutes.
How do you create the striped pasta effect?
The striped effect is easier to achieve than it looks:
- First you will need to make one batch of each dough. That is: turmeric or plain; beet and spinach.
- Roll each batch about an inch thick then lay them on top of each other.
- Cut in half and lay on half on top the other, you will now have 6 stripes.
- Press down to help the layers stick. Cut a strip that about a quarter inch thick then lay on your board with the exposed stripes facing up.
- Roll with the rolling pin first to make it thin enough to pass through a pasta machine (the lines will not remain perfectly straight)
- Repeat this till you have used up all the dough.
- Pass the dough through your pasta machine or continue to roll with a rolling pin till the desired thinness is achieved.
Another method for striping the pasta is shown in this post. The lines created in this method will be more uniform.
How do you form the raviolis?
While the pasta dough is resting I make my filling. The filling is then left in the fridge while making the striped dough.
To form the raviolis:
- I lay half of the striped dough down on the work surface.
- Put the filling in a piping bag and pipe dollops of filling along the strip of dough. Keep sufficient space between the dollops to be able to cut a circle for each ravioli.
- Brush around the filling lightly with water. Gently lay the other half of pasta strips over the filling trying to careful press out as much air as you can as you go
- Cut the circles and place the raviolis on a lightly floured tray until all are formed.
- At this point they can be frozen on the tray then bagged to cook later or you can go straight to cooking them
This is the method that I used for forming these ravioli. But you can use any method that is easier for you. I try to avoid having too many single use kitchen gadgets but you can also get a ravioli making kit.
How do you cook the ravioli?
The ackee and cheese filling is very rich and the striped effect on the pasta is beautiful. That said I didn't want to do too much to crowd the ravioli. To finish therefore, I simply sautéed the ravioli in brown butter and topped it with crispy sage.
Before cooking the ravioli, be sure to have everything ready to finish it. Because we are using fresh pasta, it cooks very very fast! Bring a pot of water to boil and salt it well. Have a frying pan ready. Once the water comes to boil heat the brown butter. Drop the raviolis in the boiling water and give a stir so they don't stick. They will cook in a few minutes.
From fresh they will take 2 to 4 minutes to cook. If you had opted to freeze them and are boiling them from frozen they may take up to 6 minutes.
Remove the ravioli from the water and toss straight into the brown butter. Serve immediately topped with crispy sage or your preferred garnish.
What to do with leftover pasta dough?
It's difficult to assess how much dough you'll need to make the raviolis and even if you multiply the filling recipe and make all raviolis, you will inevitably have left over bits.
What I do is to simply re-roll those and cut them into fettuccine then either freeze, dry or cook them. They won't be the prettiest at that point as all the colours would be mottled together but it will still be tasty 😉
So what do you think? As always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below. If you make this or any of the recipes from this site be sure to @amazingackee and #amazingackee so I can see your posts across social media.
Until next time, thanks for stopping by 😊
Fresh Ackee Pasta
Ingredients
- 6 oz (170g) Parboiled Ackee mashed or passed through a sieve
- 10.5 oz (298g) All purpose flour
- 2 tbsps Spinach Powder/Beetroot powder optional
Instructions
- Combine ackee and flour in a food processor. Pulse until the dough starts coming together
- Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 to 10 minutes (this is to develop the gluten structure, personally, I tend to go more for 5 minutes because as much as I love touching dough, sometimes I'd simply rather be off somewhere with my feet up and a book)
- Wrap in plastic and set aside at room temperature for about an hour, but 20 minutes is okay if you can't or don't want to wait. If you don't have the time to work the dough right away, you can put it in your fridge overnight and come back to it the next day.
- Divide the dough into four equal portions. Working one portion at a time, press or roll the dough out then pass it through the widest setting on your pasta machine.
- Fold the dough in thirds, press or roll it down and pass it through the widest setting once more. Move on to the next piece then repeat the whole process until each piece of dough has been given four three-folds (this also is to develop the gluten, I've gotten away with folding it into thirds only twice).
- Roll out the dough to the desired thinness then cut into desired shape depending on what you are making.
- Enjoy!
Notes
If you don't have a food processor or pasta machine:
All the steps can be done by hand but then requires a fair bit of work. If kneading the dough by hand you'll want to pass your ackee through a sieve so its already smooth and easy to work with. Knead well till it comes together in a firm ball. After resting the dough, follow the instructions for rolling the dough into thirds using a rolling pin and your awesome arm strength Fresh pasta cooks fast!
Be ready:
When cooking the pasta it is crucial to remember that fresh pasta cooks a lot faster than dry/store bought pasta. This ackee pasta was done in about a minute! Be sure to have everything you need already laid out so as soon as they float in the boiling water you're ready to go. That is from the colander you need to drain it and the sauce or oil you plan to toss it in, if you're making lasagna it's not necessary to cook the pasta beforehand, but I personally prefer to do it this way as I find it easier to handle.
Ackee Ravioli Filling
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Ackee puree left over from making the pasta
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup Ricotta cheese
- Pinch of lemon zest
- Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
- Splash of lemon juice
- Salt & Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients, should be a sticky cookie dough consistency. If too wet add a bit more parmesan cheese.