The best €3 I ever spent – Smoked salmon, goats cheese and chive ravioli.

Any of you enthusiastic cooks or chefs reading this know the feeling. My eldest talked me into driving her to T K Maxx so she could get (I could buy) some clothes. I found myself willingly agreeing. That store always has an eclectic mix of cooking stuff. There are often interesting end-of-line items at a decent price. It’s a great place to find something that will make a difference to the cooking. While eldest daughter worked the rails downstairs, sucking the life out of my current account, I was upstairs, spending the princely sum of €3 on my latest culinary treasure, a ravioli cutter. 

Side note of reality: The purchase of the cutter caused me some problems. My utensil drawer, otherwise known as the drawer of shame, had already reached overflowing. I was forced to make room for the new toy. This led to me getting rid of two large meat forks, five Chinese spoons, two cheese knives, two garlic presses, three tea strainers, an olive oil pourer and one or two unused Christmas presents over which I recall feigning delight. 

That led me to think a bit about cooking some ravioli. I had some success with my hand cut crab and spinach version. This and available herbs in the garden led me to thinking of Smoked Salmon, Goats Cheese and Chive Ravioli.

Everything one needs for this simple, delicious dish. Including the €3 cutter.

The ingredients to feed three of us includes:

• 200 grammes of smoked salmon
• 100 grammes of soft goat’s cheese
• A handful of chives from my garden (Don’t let me catch you.)
• 200 grammes of plain flour (The packaging doesn’t get much plainer than this!)
• 2 eggs
• Some polenta flour to stop the pasta sticking and to improve the quality of the ‘work’ photos.

The first thing to do is to make the pasta. I took a leaf from Stefan’s Gourmet Blog on this. I put the flour and eggs into a mixer and mixed it until I had a stiff dough. I then changed to a dough hook and beat it for 15 minutes. Then I wrapped it in cling film and left it in the fridge for a half hour.

I used the half hour to chop the chives.

Those are not reflections on the knife. I wish I could get my knife that polished!

Then chopped the salmon into small pieces.

Gratuitous salmon chopping shot. There is not much to show you in this post so I have to use ever shot I have.

Then mixed the salmon, chives and goat’s cheese into a nice paste.

This is a beautiful combination. I would gladly (did) eat it with a spoon.

Next, I flattened the pasta and cut it into two pieces.

That is the polenta flour spread on the table. It does a great job of stopping the pasta from sticking.

Each piece was rolled out into long strips. When the pasta was rolled nice and thin, I placed blobs of the salmon mix on the pasta and folded it.

Nice blobs of salmon mixture placed to one side and evenly spaced.

Next I dabbed out any of the remaining air.

Dabbing out the air. Perhaps there is a kitchen gadget for that?

Next my new baby went into action, allowing me cut out perfectly formed pasta parcels. Any polenta flour that remains falls off in the boiling.

My best spent €3 in action. Get down to your nearest TK Maxx and blow €3 ($4).

A gratuitous ravioli cutting shot with the new toy artistically posed.

The ravioli were dropped into a big pot of boiling water, removed when they floated to the surface (about 2 minutes) and served.

The plate is new too. €5.35 in House of Fraser. But, that’s another story…

A simple white sauce with chives completed this wonderful treat. I look forward to getting even more value out of the new cutter. The ravioli worked extremely well. Give it a go. You will regret it even less than I regret buying my new toy.