Prawn ravioli with green curry dressing

Midnight Bakery original

In South-East Asia it is not uncommon to find a peaceful marriage between noodles with various versions of curry and raviolli is certainly not too distant a cousin from noodles. Dear friends, I present to you the dish that broke my mortar: Prawn ravioli with green curry dressing.

Prawn ravioli with green curry dressing

Indeed, it was a risky adventure, nevertheless it promised a lot of fun and excitement to be had in the kitchen not to mention a great exercise opportunity. Those who have not yet made fresh pasta by hand (no pasta maker required), you should give it a go. This experiment threw my kitchen into an absolute painful state, what with a broken mortar and a new one too. Rest assured, the result makes this adventure well worth it!

Fresh hand-made pasta

To make the Midnight Bakery pasta, you will need:

• 3 large eggs
• 300 g of wheat flour
• 3 teaspoon of salt for flavour
  

Knead the pasta until elastic and rest for at least 30 minutes in room temperature. Meanwhile, you could start preparing the raviolli filling.

Crispy bacon and curry leaves as part of the ravioli filling

To make the Midnight Bakery prawn raviolli filling:

• 1 1/2 tablespoon of minced garlic in olive oil
• 500g of garlic prawns, roughly diced
• 200g of bacon, diced
• 2 stems of curry leaves, stem removed
  

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil and fry bacon and curry leaves until fragrant and the bacon crispy. Cool, mix with diced garlic prawns and keep in the fridge until required.

Step by step guid to making ravioli by hand

When you're ready to make the ravioli, dust the dough and the work surface with extra flour. With a rolling pin roll out pasta dough, flipping it and turning it around to ensure that you roll the dough evenly. Put a teaspoon-full of prawn stirfry on pasta dough roughly 4 cm apart. Top with pasta dough. Press down the edges gently so it looks like a little sombrero/Mexican hat. You could "stencil" it with a little tea cup if you have one. Cut out with knife and press again on the edges to ensure that the filling doesn't leak out during cooking. Keep them on a plate, generously dusted with flour to avoid them sticking to each other. Now on to that green curry dressing.

Green curry made from freshly hand ground ingredients
(the curry that killed my mortar)

To make the Midnight Bakery's green curry sauce, you will need:

• 1 bunch of basil
• 1 bunch of coriander (including roots)3 stems of curry leaves, stems removed
• 1 knob of tumeric
• 2 knobs of ginger
• 2 medium shallots, diced
• 2 large red chillis, sliced
• 2 teaspoons of belachan (fermented shrimp paste)
• 3 medium shallots, sliced
• 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
• 200 ml of coconut cream
• 1 handful of fresh kaffir lime leaves, scrunch until you could smell that beautiful citrusy scent
• Lime juice and salt for seasoning
  

Pound the basil, coriander, curry leaves, tumeric, ginger, diced shallots, chilli and belachan paste. Heat a pan with oil and minced garlic and sliced shallots until translucent and the garlic slightly browning. Add pounded spices and stir fry until fragrant. Add coconut cream and lime leaves. Season with salt and lime juice to taste. Reduce heat and let to simmer.

A taste bud wonderland

Get a pot of salty water boiling and cook ravioli for 7-8 minutes then drain. Heat a pan with 1/2 teaspoon of oil and toss the ravioli with green curry sauce. For 5 ravioli, add 5 tablespoons of the curry sauce. The idea is not to have a soup (although you could), but just to have a glaze of the sauce over the surface of the raviolli. Serve with extra basil.

Mix and match dry and soupy dishes

Extra notes

• You could make stir-fry out of the prawn filling by adding diced capsicums, basil leaves and coriander and combining them together in a quick hot toss in a wok.
• You could combine the ravioli with a lot more green curry if you like. After cooking the ravioli in salty water, just serve in a bowl with curry sauce, or in this case, curry soup. Place the ravioli into the soup just before serving to avoid soggy pasta.
• Make fettucinne with leftover pasta dough. Dust pasta sheet generously on both sides with flour and roll into a log. Cut 1 cm thickness, unroll and voila! Cook in salty boiling water for 7-8 minutes and dress with any sauce you like.