To make ten servings: take a half libra of aged cheese, and a little fatty cheese and a libra of fatty pork belly or veal teat, and boil until it comes apart easily; then chop well and take some good, well-chopped herbs, and pepper, cloves, and ginger: and it would be even better if you added some ground capon breast; incorporate all these things together.

Then take a thin sheet of pasta and encase the mixture in the pasta, as for other ravioli. These ravioli should not be larger than half a chestnut; cook them in capon broth, or good meat broth that you have made yellow with saffron when it boils. Let the ravioli simmer for the time it takes to say two Lord’s Prayers.

Serves 2

Pasta dough:

4,5-5 dl Drum wheat flour (or normal wheat flour)

3 eggs (or 1,5 dl water)

1 tablespoon of olive oil

(salt)

Ravioli filling:

about 40 g ground cheese (aged/fatty or both)

about 80 g prosciutto ham (or cooked pork belly as the recipe suggests)

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley

½ teaspoon of pepper

½ teaspoon of ginger

¼ teaspoon of cloves

Egg for brushing the pasta sheets

For cooking:

1,5 l meat broth

pinch of saffron to colour the broth

Start with clean work surface. Take 4,5 dl flour and make a mound. Make a well in the middle of the mound and add beaten eggs (or water), olive oil and salt there. Start mixing slowly with your hands, slowly incorporating all the flour until the dough comes together. Knead about 15 minutes (this is essential part of making pasta) until pasta is soft and elastic. Add more flour if needed. Let the dough rest about 30 minutes covered.

Prepare the filling. Grate cheese and chop parsley and meat very fine. Add all together and mix well. Use machine or rolling pin to roll the dough to thin sheets. Beat one egg and brush egg to the sheet. Drop one teaspoons of filling to the dough couple centimeters away from each other. Cover the filling with a sheet of pasta and press the air out. Cutt and press the ravioli edges together firmly. Take a pot and bring meat broth to boil. Add a little bit saffron to colour the broth if you wish. When the broth boils add the ravioli and cook them 2-4 minutes depending on the size of your ravioli. Serve with or without the broth. Garnish with cheese and herbs if you wish.

Comments: If you roll all the dough at once, remember that the pasta sheets will start drying and handling drying pasta sheets makes it more difficult to form ravioli. You can use this pasta recipe for other types of pasta too. I haven’t yet dry pasta made with eggs, so I don’t know how long it will stay fresh. You can froze your pasta if you don’t want to use it right away. I have heard that it tastes almost as good as fresh. This pasta recipe will be added to the basic recipe section.

If you make ravioli for only two you really don’t need much filling. Making ravioli for many is quite time consuming which is good to know at advance. The recipe suggests adding both aged cheese and fatty cheese to the filling. I used only mozarella, beause I had that in my fridge. And I cheated a little bit by using prosciutto instead of cooked pork belly or veal teat.

(The Art of Cooking, The First Modern Cookery Book, The Eminent Maestro Martino of Como, 15th century, Ballerini)