Recipes for ravioli appear in a number of period manuscripts including English and German sources. This recipe comes from an Italian source as was appropriate for an Italian feast.

• 1-1/2 cups ricotta cheese
• 1 egg
•  5 oz fresh spinach
• 1-1/2 tsp ground white pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 tbsp flour * as needed to thicken filling.

blanch spinach and press out as much water as possible, chop fine or puree (frozen spinach may be substituted but needs to be thawed and well drained.) Just as we were preparing for this feast, fresh spinach was being recalled for e-coli contamination so we did substitute frozen spinach. This also proved to be a more economical source for the amount of ravioli we needed to serve a hundred diners.

Blend all ingredients together and set aside while the pasta dough is prepared. You can use any standard pasta dough recipe, commercial leaves, or even won ton wrappers. One can be found here Dumpling/noodle dough

  Fill, seal and boil until tender, serve simply with a bit of grated cheese or with a sprinkle of typical Medieval spices, such as cinnamon. Or you can go more modern and use your favorite sauce.

Ravilois can be frozen and boiled later. There is no need to thaw them, but adding frozen pasta to you boiling water will quickly reduce the heat and cooking the pasta will take a little longer.

This dish comes from Libro di cucina/Libro per cuoco known as the Anonimo Veneziana. This is an Italian text from the late 14th or early 15th century.

 I have used the English Translation by Helewyse de Birkestaf, OL (MKA Louise Smithson). This was previously available on line, but I am unable to access it at this time.

LXIII Fantastic common ravioli with herbs
If you want to make ravioli with herbs or with other things, take herbs and peel (strip from stalks) and wash well.  Put them to boil for a little time (parboil) and pull them out (of the pan) and squeeze out all the water.  Beat them with a knife (chop) and then in a mortar (grind).  Take fresh strained cheese, eggs and strong and sweet spices and mix these all well together and make a paste.  Then take a thin layer of pasta, in the way of lasagna sheets, and take a large measure (spoon) and make the ravioli.  When they are made put them to cook and when they are well cooked powder them above with enough spices and enough good cheese and they are very good.

* There is no mention here of appropriate cooking technique.  The previous ravioli recipes, which were lacking a pasta covering, were all fried.  This recipe uses a pasta layer around the filling, the other recipes for pasta (including the lasagne recipe XXXVIII) only contain the instruction to “cook” without specifying the mode.  However, later recipe collections (from the 15th and 16th centuries) clearly state that such stuffed pasta, and any other form of pasta, should be cooked in plenty of boiling water with salt.  An instruction unchanged through today.

These were served at our Last Chance Feast in 2006 We simply boiled them and sprinkled some grated Parmesan over them. They were very well received.

Other Recipes from this Manuscript

• Armored Turnips 
• Imperial Fritters
• Sweet and Sour Sauce for Pork
• White Fritters

Other Italian Recipes

• Dulcamine 
• Ofella 
• Onions in Sauce 
• White Torte

This recipe was published in the Dragons Laire Culinary Guild Booklet; "A Small Selection of Cheese Recipes from Medieval and Renaissance Sources"

Other recipes featured in this booklet on this site include

• Frytours of Mylke
• Genovese Tart
• Imperial Fritters
• Ofella
• White Fritters
• White Torte