Smoked haddock, goats cheese and spinach ravioli. This one’s a must for Facebook!

 I want you to think of this ravioli as the culinary equivalent of a Facebook post. Not because I went to the trouble of digging out the fancy plate with the blue edge, the matching napkin and the table cloth in a colour almost exactly that of the Facebook logo. These all give some subtle brand support but, they are not the point. In reality it’s all a bit more psychological. 

The truth of this lies in the fact that this simple ravioli is as good as it gets. On that basis, it’s the very stuff of Facebook posting. It is the place for showing off the positive side of our lives. Many of us idly flick through the feed and marvel at the lovely lives our friends appear to have. You know the story. They are always checking in at fancy restaurants, posting shots of themselves with minor celebrities and always, always beaming with self satisfied happiness. Nobody is that happy.

Side note on the reality of Facebook: In truth, many of these lovely people spend their downtime sitting at home, lonely, unloved and posting witticisms, memes and cat on a skateboard videos, in a pathetic attempt to look as if they have a fulfilling life. 

That crystal wine glass and the bottle of Macon Lugny add greatly to the atmosphere of perfection. My ravioli is a real highpoint and it represents the best of my life at present. I should have just stuck the picture up on Facebook. But, enough of this rant. Here’s the ingredients for Smoked Haddock, Goats Cheese and Spinach Ravioli:

• 180 grammes of 00 flour
• 2 fresh eggs
• 150 grammes piece of smoked haddock (really smoked, not painted with smoke type flavouring)
• 100 grammes of baby spinach
• 100 grammes or so of fresh, soft goat’s cheese
• Salt and pepper to season
• 250ml of cream

Pasta. All you need is 00 flour and egg. That’s all. No salt. No oil.

Beat the pasta ingredients to a dough. Change over to the dough hook (You have a dough hook, don’t you?) Beat it for 10 minutes more. If you don’t have a mixer, you can combine this lot by hand and knead the dough until it’s ready. Wrap it in cling film and pop it in the fridge for half an hour.

Add the fish and the cream to a saucepan. Poach the fish in the cream.

We haven’t had a decent pouring shot in a while. Cream pours pretty well.

Remove the fish and flake it by hand, removing any stray bones.

The skin will practically fall off the fish. (Note the Facebook blue edge on this plate too.)

Cook the spinach and squeeze out any excess water. Add the spinach, crumbled fish and goat’s cheese to a bowl.

This is all good stuff. Fish, goat’s cheese and spinach.

Season well and mix to incorporate.

This doesn’t look like much. The flavour is fantastic.

Roll out the pasta. Get it nice and thin. My Facebook friend Lisa-Ann and I debate whether level 5 or level 8 is thin enough. She is of Sicilian extraction and should know. She suggests 8. I can see through level 5 as the picture shows. I went to 6. No more.

The Wife wears the pasta like a second skin.

Lay out the pasta. Add dollops of the mixture.

Don’t add too much. The ravioli will not be the better of overfilling.

Lay a layer of pasta on top and work out any trapped air by dabbing with your finger, working from the centre outwards.

Get rid of the air. The ravioli will only float in the water.

Cut out the ravioli using a fancy pasta cutter if you have one (You will know if you have one, there will be a picture on your Facebook feed). Otherwise, use a less fancy knife and make square ravioli.

The fancy cutter does a great job of sealing and cutting the pasta.

Side note on ravioli making: Don’t leave as much of a gap between the ravioli as I did here. You will get more ravioli. That can only be a good thing. 

Add a dollop of the goat’s cheese to the cream in which you poached the fish. Stir it, over a low heat, until you have a nice thick sauce. Collect the ravioli and add them to a large pot of boiling water.

This is the ravioli before it goes into the water. It looks lovely.

If you have extracted the air, they will sink, only coming back to the surface when they are cooked. Lift them out, spoon over some of the cream sauce and serve them immediately.

The pasta is as light as a feather and filled with goodness.

The dish is delicious. Take pictures of it and post them on your Facebook feed. Either that of feed your face. If you go with the latter, you can use the picture below on your feed. Or should that be fed?

Fed up with Facebook? Add this to your feed.

Feed this to your Facebook friends. They will be fed up with you. You will be well fed.