Ravioli di ricotta con sugo di maiale

This week I partnered with Igers Sicilia, the official instagrammers community in Sicily, to post a recipe in the format of an Instagram Story and, apparently, this was a first within the whole Igers Italia community. Trying to divide a recipe in six different photo-stories was an interesting challenge and I am proud of the final result.

We chose Sicilian Ravioli di Ricotta, a winter classic in the Ragusa area. As usual, there are different ways to make ravioli, every cook has his/her own special recipe, but the main two variations are ravioli made with plain ricotta cheese or ravioli with sugar in the ricotta filling. So we decided to include a poll within our Instagram story asking people what version they usually prepare and 53% prefers making ravioli with unsweetened ricotta while 47% has clearly a sweet tooth even when it comes to pasta;-)!
The story can be seen on the Igers Sicilia account for a few more days and the recipe is in Italian, below you find the English translation and indications to make them either plain or sweet.  Try them and let us know which version you prefer. 

Ingredients

300 gr semolina flour
2 eggs
75-100 ml water
500 gr ricotta cheese
(sugar)
salt

Sift the flour, add a pinch of salt and make a well in the centre, break the eggs (which should be at room temperature) in the well and beat with a fork, add 75ml of water, as soon as the eggs have been absorbed by some of the flour, start kneading with your hands and add more water only if necessary to obtain a smooth and homogeneous dough. Wrap the dough in a clean cloth and put to rest for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Wash the marjoram and remove the leaves from the sprigs keeping them whole (if they are big leaves tear them, do not cut them). Take a bowl and mix the ricotta with the marjoram. [Salt: add a pinch of salt only after tasting the ricotta and if you feel it necessary. Sugar: if you want to prepare the sweet version of Sicilian ravioli in contrast with the porc sauce, add 2 tablespoons of sugar and mix well. Some people add also a pinch of cinnamon powder.]

Roll out the dough using a rolling pin or a pasta machine trying to obtain a sheet about 2 mm thick. If you use a rolling pin and obtain a single large sheet of pasta, cut it into strips about 6 cm wide. Using a sac-à-poche or a spoon, drop about 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls of filling about 4cm apart all along the dough strip. Cover with another strip of dough, gently press with your fingertips to seal the filling, making sure to let all the air out. If necessary, brush the edges with water to make the two layers of dough adhere well around the filling. Using a zig-zag edged pastry cutter cut out square ravioli of about 5 cm or use a special ravioli cutter. Lay the ravioli on a floured pastry board.

Cook the ravioli in plenty of salted water until the dough is tender, drain gently with a skimmer and toss with plenty of sauce.