Tom and I have been talking about linking our posts so that what he reviews, I’ll use as inspiration for my weekly recipe. This week was a minor fail on my part as I was suppose to riff on Guangzhou. I saw myself at a slight disadvantage as I didn’t go on this trip. I felt it was tough to really experiment with a new dish based on text and pictures alone.
I was struggling, until we stumbled upon Hot Pot Instinct after a swim one evening. It had nothing to do with Guangzhou, but it did provide ample inspiration. I’ll save the review for Tom of course, but I will say one of the highlights was the prawn balls stuffed with cheese. Yes. Cheese. Noticing this odd combo, we ordered them simply out of curiosity. We were floored when they actually turned out to be good. I started thinking about this guilty little ball of pleasure and wondered if I could pull off something similar.
The prawn balls got me thinking of dumplings because one filling that’s available most of the time is prawn and chive. Adding cheese to this seemed like a reasonable idea, and like the hot pot restaurant, I decided I’d stick to a less flashy option. The recipe was finally set when I considered swapping the eastern version for his western cousin -ravioli. The result below only confirms that pairing cheese and seafood together is a definite win.
Prawn, Chive, and Smoke Havarti Ravioli in Lemon Butter Emulsion
For the pasta
- 400 g typo 00 flour
- 4 eggs
If you haven’t made fresh pasta before, you must. It’s a pretty simple process and the reward for your effort is ten fold compared to using the dried stuff. I have made it a few times at the Victoria, and learned the basic rule of thumb is 100 g of flour for each egg. Plan for 100g per person and multiply the recipe according to how many people you’re having round for supper.
Place the flour and the eggs in a food processor with a pastry blade and pulse until the mix clumps together and looks like peas. Form the dough into a ball, wrap in cling film, and place in the fridge to rest.
![pasta dough]()
For the filling
- 300 g raw prawns
- 1 cloves garlic, minced
- dash of olive oil
- 1 large bunch of chives, chopped
- salt and pepper
- lemon zest
- 175 g smoked Havarti cheese or Emmentaler
Finding the right cheese for this was important. I wanted something mild with good melting capabilities. When I hit the supermarket, I was going for Emmentaler until I stumbled upon some smoked Havarti. As you can see from the picture, it’s not a sexy cheese, but its creaminess and hint of smoke seemed perfect for this recipe.
In a small saucepan, heat a bit of olive oil on low and then add the minced garlic. Lightly fry for about 2 minutes, making sure it doesn’t brown. Remove the garlic from the pan and set aside.
Steam the prawns for 4 minutes and place in the food processor. Add the fried garlic, salt and pepper, and lemon zest. Pulse a few times until the mix is coarse, but not a paste.
Next, grate the cheese. I tried doing this in the food processor with a grater attachement, but the Havarti was so soft that it ended up whipping it instead. This was not necessarily a bad thing. I folded the cheese into the prawn mixture along with the chives and the consistency was perfect.
Place the filling in the fridge until you’re ready to use.
For the lemon-butter emulsion
- 200 g cold butter, cubed
- a tiny bit of hot water
- a small amount of fresh lemon juice
Before I started rolling pasta, I put on a pot of water to boil, and I made my sauce. If you set everything ahead of time, once you’ve sealed the last ravioli the hard work is over. All you have to do is plop them in the water and wait.
Place a small amount of hot water in a saucepan and whisk in the butter on low heat. The water keeps the butter from separating, and eventually you should have a sauce that’s thick and rich. Season with a dash of lemon juice. Turn off the heat, but keep warm.
Rolling pasta
- pasta dough
- 1 egg white
If you don’t have a pasta machine, it’s not a bad idea to consider buying one. You also don’t need to invest in the bells and whistles model to produce restaurant quality pasta. At home, we have the very basic Imperia model which is the same one we used at the Victoria. Rolling fresh pasta is actually quite simple. It’s not a quick process, but despite the repetitiveness, I find it quite meditative.
Cut a portion of the dough the size of a fist and flatten with your hands. Dust your hands in flour if you find the dough is sticking. Form a rectangle and flatten down to about 3mm. Set the machine to the lowest setting “1” and begin feeding the dough through with one hand while you crank the machine with the other.
Roll the dough through a few times until it’s smooth and uniform. Move to the next setting “2”, and again roll through two times. Progress in this fashion, rolling the dough twice through each setting until you reach the lowest “6”. At this point the dough should be thin, yet pliable.
Trim the rough edges on a cutting board, and cut in half to create a top and bottom sheet. Spoon some filling on the bottom sheet. I eyeball the spacing depending on how big I want the raviolis to be.
Ring the filling with egg wash and then place the top sheet. Press down the top sheet to seal the two together. As you seal it, make sure to squeeze out all the air.
Cut the raviolis into squares and plunge in boiling water for 4-5 minutes. You can usually “feel” when they are ready because they become soft and pillow-y.
Since I am a bit of a kitchen nazi, I rarely accept Tom’s help. I’m trying to get better about relinquishing control so ravioli making was the perfect opportunity to try this out. It also helps speed things along if you have a partner, e.g. one person does the filling while the other rolls the dough. We got quite inventive when Tom found this Christmas tree cookie cutter. You can see his expert ravioli making below.
You can crank these out until you’re ready to boil them. Just make sure that you keep them covered with cling film so they don’t dry out. After they’re cooked, drizzle with the lemon-butter emulsion and sprinkle with chopped chives.
