Ligurian artichoke ravioli

Put the flour on the pastry board and make a hole in the centre with your hands. Like a volcano!

Put the eggs and oil inside the hole. Some people add a pinch of salt too.

With a whisk or two forks, beat the eggs, taking care not to break the surrounding flour edge which holds them in the centre and prevents them from spilling out onto the board.

Break up the egg whites thoroughly. Then start to allow a little flour to descend onto the eggs, always without breaking the edges but moving the whisk or the forks from the inside edge towards the centre.

With the spatula, remove a little flour from the edge. It will be needed afterwards to flour the pasta.

Start to mix by hand.

Continue until you have a smooth dough.

Hint: while you are kneading, scrape the pastry board with the spatula and integrate any crumbs inside the dough so as not to waste anything and work cleanly.

This phase requires hard work and patience. Pretend you are dancing on the pastry board.

After at least 5 minutes you will start to have an increasingly smooth dough.

Create a round loaf shape, closing the lower part and leave it to rest, lightly floured, on the pastry board after covering it with an upturned bowl.

Clean the artichokes, removing the harder outer bracts until you have almost arrived at the heart. Cut in half and remove the beard inside. Cut into slices and put them in water acidified with lemon juice. If your artichokes have a stalk, use it by removing the green bark and keeping the white and tender part inside. Cut into chunks.

After half an hour put the artichokes into a pan to fry with oil and a crushed clove of garlic, to be taken out when it starts to brown. Salt and stew with the lid on for about ten minutes, stirring every so often. Turn off and allow to cool.

Then chop them very fine. Pour them into a bowl and add egg, salt, pepper, marjoram and prescinsêua (or ricotta) and the Parmesan cheese. Stir.

Transfer the filling to a piping bag.

Take the lump of egg pasta dough and put it back on the floured pastry board.

Start to feed some pieces through the dough sheeter, starting from the thicker level and moving on to the thinner one (I end with the last level but it depends which machine you use).

Hint: if you do not have a pasta maker, use a rolling pin.

Continue to flour the sheets to stop them from sticking together.

Flour the ravioli mould and lay out the first sheet. 

Put a pile of filling in each hole, using the piping bag.

Cover with the second sheet.

Turn the mould over, squash and then cut the individual ravioli with the cutter. Continue until you have used up all the sheets and filling.

Put the ravioli apart and well-floured on trays or on the pastry board.

Cook in salted boiling water for about 5 minutes (it depends on the thickness of the sheet) and season to taste.