How to Make Ravioli with Ricotta and Quail Egg Ravioli from SPQR

SPQR (An acronym for the Latin translation of The Senate and the People of Rome) is a 1 Michelin star restaurant in the Fillmore district of San Francisco know for their handmade pastas. I have multiple friends who count this as their favorite pasta place in the city.

The cookbook is rather interesting as it is self described in the second paragraph “not intended to be a restaurant cook… rather it is a slow paced passeggiata, an Italian stroll, taken along the ancient Roman roads of central and northern Italy. While that sounds great and all, me personally, I am looking for more of the restaurant cookbook to learn more about the actual restaurant. The book goes very in depth about certain Italian towns, wines grown around that region, the types of grapes, and then finally the food inspired by the towns in a modern approach. The book is also organized by region, so have fun on your passeggiata finding a recipe.

I also was not a huge fan of the dough we made (I also do not have a stand mixer as the recipe calls for, but most other SF Pasta Dough recipes I have used call for making by hand). It came out pretty dry (which is normal depending on the recipe, but this was just the start), used considerably less eggs than other recipes I have had success with, and yielded much less dough than I typically get. So I was a little confused at the start, but wanted to follow all of the directions, and even made sure to weigh all of the ingredients to the gram. I will be talking about the recipe from the book, but if I were to make this again, I would use a different ravioli dough. All of this could have been from not having the proper mixer (which has officially been ordered btw), so I am looking forward to trying this out again with all proper tools.

Speaking of not having proper tools, when cooking these types of complex recipes, you may have to improvise in order to get the job done. A quick and embarrassing example that my girlfriend was laughing about for a while was me using a Yeti lid to stamp out my pasta, and then cut it out with a pasta tool (Ugh). Also, with pasta in general, the one mandatory thing you need to start is a pasta roller. Maybe you got one from your wedding registry that you haven’t used yet, or maybe one stuff in the closet that you tired once from a shitty/easy dough recipe you found from Tasty on Instagram. Oh right, these recipes use gram measurements as much as possible with provided substitutions of what it should come out to. Do your self a favor and buy a kitchen scale, it’s maybe $10 on Amazon and it’ll save your bacon repeatedly.

Making pasta is simple when you look at an ingredients list and the steps involved, but people work their entire life to perfect it. So if your first few batches of dough don’t come out like you maybe wanted, don’t worry about it. And I guarantee you there are multiple things you can be doing to make it better. Anyways let’s get going…

This recipe comes from Emilia Romagna and Lombardia, in case anyone was wondering.

Cookbook – SPQR

Ingredients:

Filling:

Drained Ricotta – 150 grams – the restaurant dries ricotta in cheese cloth overnight in order to have as little moisture as possible when doing the filling. Makes sense, but if you don’t have that time, that’s okay, I made it without the drainage with success.
1 egg – 50 grams
Fontina or Parmasan – 50 grams/ or 1/2 cup
Salt – 1/2 teaspoon
Black pepper
Nutmeg for grating – didn’t use honestly
Quail Eggs – about a dozen or so –

Pasta – Honestly didn’t go well for me, and I had made pasta over 50 times, but this is the recipe:

00 Flour – 250 grams – about 2 cups
Sale – 2 grams – 1/2 teaspoon
2 eggs – 100 grams
Water – 9 grams = 2 teaspoons

Greens and Finish –

Extra virgin olive oil
Yellow Onion – 1/2 of it, thinly sliced
Salt
Garlic – 1 clove
Wild greens (kale, mustard, dandelion – I used kale) – about 6 cups or so
Unsalted butter – 85 grams = 1/2 cup
Water
Fontina or Parmesan – 50 grams = 1/2 cup
Black pepper

Step One – Make the Dough

The restaurant uses a stand mixer for this, so follow the next paragraph if you do have one. If not, follow the following paragraph for preparing by hand.

For a mixer, fix with the paddle attachment. Mix flour and salt on low speed. In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs and water. With the mixer running on medium, drizzle in the egg mixture and mix for 2-3 minutes. Once mixed, take out and knead by hand for about 10 minutes, it’ll feel dry and firm. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and leave on the counter for at least 30 minutes.

Step 2 – Make the filling

The filling here is actually pretty basic, adding the quail egg is where thing start to get interesting.

In a large bowl, mix together the ricotta, regular egg, and cheese, season with salt and pepper. Set aside. The restaurant uses a pastry bag to pipe onto the raviolis, but I just used a spoon. It’s probably easier in the grand scheme of things, but I just didn’t want to set that up.

Step 3 – Roll out the dough and form

(This is more from my experience, not the SPQR book btw) If you have never rolled out pasta, it’s an interesting process. I usually start by smashing down the dough by hand and forming into something that slightly resembles a rectangle, then get a rolling pin to get it thin enough for the first setting on the roller. It’s a little thinner than you may think.

Ideally you have two people making pasta if you have a manual crank, but that’s not always the case. And you are a badass for making pasta by yourself anyways, so it completely possible, and I will walk you through how to manage. Ideally you have one hand doing the cranking, one hand feeding the dough, and the other guiding the dough out. Well one hand always has to crank, so your other hand will have to be the feeder and guider. As you are feeding it through, make sure to always keep the crank going, even if it is just barely moving. If you stop moving, there will be a little crease in the dough where you stopped. I usually start by guiding the dough through, and then as it is starting to pile up under the roller, grab it with my pinky and ring finger to guide out. It’s something that you will get used to overtime.

I try to make the dough about as wide as the roller in order to get those close to square sheets. Start by rolling the dough through twice on the largest setting. Move it down one setting and roll through again twice. Go down another setting, and roll through another two times.

This next step is crucial, it is called laminating and makes the dough even stronger. Fold the dough in half, and then in half again. Press together again with the rolling pin and start the process all over again. Go through each setting twice, going all the way to the smallest setting

After rolling out to the smallest setting, take the dough and punch out about 3 inch rounds. Again, I didn’t have anything to specifically do this, to get creative if not. After this, you can lightly flour the rounds and set aside in a storage container and refrigerate.

Step 4 – Fill the Ravs

You ever worked with Quail eggs? Yeah me neither. You cannot crack them like normal eggs. The trick to doing so is to cut off the top, then remove. I used an extremely sharp Global boning knife which worked pretty darn well. I saw others online using serrated knifes as well, or pairing knives. From there, separate the yolk from the white. I ended up putting emptied egg on a spoon, and then very carefully moved the whites from the yolk.

You can make two different ravs, ones with just cheese, and others with the cheese and quail egg. The cheese ones are fairly straight forward, and I would recommend starting here to warm up on the ravioli making. Place a small amount of cheese in the center of the circle of dough, and then place another circle on top. Start pressing down on the edges to close. I usually like to press down on three separate points to start closing to ensure there are no creases.

For the placing quail eggs in the ravs, place down a slightly smaller amount of the cheese mixture onto a circle. Make a small damn in the center of the cheese, and place your egg. Fold up in the same process as the previous ravs. Set aside on the semolina floured surface.

Step 5 – Make the greens

Heat a think film of olive oil in a medium pan on low heat. Sweat the onion until softened, then add the garlic, cook for about another minute. Add the greens until soft and wilted, about 5-8 minutes. In a separate small pot, heat the butter and water on low, whisking together to combine and eventually becoming slightly creamy in texture. Spoon the greens on your plates.

Step 6 – Make the pasta and Finish

Boil water. Cook the cheese stuffed raviolis first, about 2-3 minutes max. Carefully take out with a slotted spoon and set in a colander to further drain. Move onto the quail egg filled ones, cook for 2-3 minutes max as well. While this is going on, feel free to move your cheese ravs to your plate. Carefully take out the quail ravs with a slotted spoon and place in the colander. Once drained, move them onto the plate with the greens and other raviolis. Top with your butter/water mixture and aggressively shred with parm.

Finished product, not bad! Oh it tasted amazing btw

And for the reviews –

Difficulty of ingredients – 4/5 stars – quail eggs are not everywhere, Japanese stores typically have them, or farmers markets
Perceived difficulty – 4.5/5 stars – It also did not help that I did not have all the more necessary ingredients like a piping bag or a perfect circle cutter
Difficulty after recipe – 4/5 stars – I had difficulty wrapping some of the ravs, and did not get the perfect cook that I was looking for with the runny yolk on some
Time taken – 4/5 stars – Just barely, this could take over 4 hours though
Taste – 4.5/5 stars – Very very good dish with very few flaws
Make again – 3.5/5 stars – if someone requested it, but I definitely want another crack at making this another time