Green Spinach Ravioli with Burrata Stracciatella, Red Prawn and Vermentino Bisque | Ravioli Verdi agli Spinaci con Stracciatella di Burrata, Gambero Rosso e Bisque al Vermentino

Sep 22

11 min read

Green Spinach Ravioli with Burrata Stracciatella, Red Prawn and Vermentino Bisque

This is a raviolo with nothing cooked inside it. Raw red prawn, chopped by hand rather than minced, is folded into stracciatella di burrata with a little mascarpone, lemon zest and soft herbs, and the only heat it meets is the four minutes the pasta spends in the water. That is long enough to set the sfoglia and to turn the prawn from translucent to barely opaque, and no longer.

Around it goes a bisque built from the heads and shells, roasted with tomato paste, deglazed with Vermentino and mounted with cold butter. It is the flavour of the prawn returned to the plate as a sauce rather than a cream, which is why there is no panna in this recipe. Grated bottarga di muggine at the table adds salt and a cured, faintly bitter edge. The sfoglia is green because the spinach is blended into the dough, the old Emilian method for pasta verde.

Yield: 4 servings, 20 to 24 ravioli. Prep: 1 hour. Resting: 1 hour. Cook: 45 minutes. Difficulty: advanced. Course: primo piatto. Region: contemporary Italian, Sardinian and Sicilian ingredients.

The Story

This dish is modern and does not pretend otherwise, but every element in it is old and has an address. The prawn is the gambero rosso of Mazara del Vallo, fished from deep water in the Sicilian Channel by a fleet that has worked out of that port for centuries. It is caught between about 400 and 700 metres down, where cold water gives it its dense sweet flesh, and it is one of the very few Mediterranean crustaceans genuinely better raw than cooked.

The bottarga is Sardinian, from Cabras on the Gulf of Oristano, where grey mullet roe has been salted and air dried since Phoenician times. Cured whole in its sac, pressed and dried for weeks, it is the island's oldest luxury and its most useful seasoning: grated over a plate it does the work of salt, anchovy and age at once. The Vermentino in the bisque is Sardinian too, from the granite hills of Gallura, the only DOCG on the island.

The stracciatella comes from Puglia, the torn heart of a burrata from the Murgia around Andria, and the green sfoglia is Emilian in method. A Sicilian prawn, a Sardinian roe, a Pugliese cheese and an Emilian dough on one plate is not regional cooking and should not be described as such. It is how Italian kitchens have worked since the country started moving its produce around, and it demands restraint: four strong ingredients, nothing added to soften the argument between them.

Ingredients

For the green spinach pasta

Italian type 00 flour, 2 3/4 cups (350 g)
Fresh spinach, blanched and squeezed dry, 2 3/4 oz (80 g)
Eggs, large, 3
Egg yolk, large, 1
Fine sea salt, 1 pinch
Fine semolina for dusting, 1/4 cup (40 g)

For the stracciatella and prawn filling

Stracciatella di burrata, well drained, 8 3/4 oz (250 g)
Red prawns, peeled and hand chopped, 7 3/4 oz (220 g)
Mascarpone, 1 1/2 oz (40 g)
Lemon zest, finely grated, from 1/2 organic lemon
Chives, finely chopped, 1 tbsp
Flat leaf parsley, finely chopped, 1 tbsp
Fine sea salt and white pepper, to taste

For the Vermentino bisque

Heads and shells reserved from the prawns
Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Shallot, roughly chopped, 1
Carrot, roughly chopped, 1/2
Celery stalk, roughly chopped, 1/2
Garlic cloves, crushed, 2
Tomato paste, 2 tbsp (32 g)
Vermentino di Gallura, 2/3 cup (150 ml)
Light fish stock, 3 cups (700 ml)
Thyme sprigs, 3, and bay leaf, 1
Cold butter, diced, 1 1/2 oz (40 g)

For finishing

Whole raw red prawns, 4
Bottarga di muggine, 1/2 oz (15 g)
Lemon oil, 2 tsp (10 ml)
Chive batons, dill and bronze fennel, a few of each
Maldon sea salt, to taste
Coarse sea salt for the pasta water, 2 tbsp (30 g)

Preparation

Peeling the prawns and reserving the shells

Twist the heads from the prawns and keep them with the shells, since they carry most of the flavour of the bisque. Peel the tails, run a knife down the back and lift out the dark tract. Reserve four whole raw tails for the garnish and chop the rest by hand into pieces about the size of a grain of rice. Do not use a processor: it bruises the flesh and releases water. Keep the prawn over ice until the filling is mixed.

Blanching the spinach and making the green dough

Drop the spinach into boiling salted water for 30 seconds, lift it into iced water, then squeeze it in a towel until genuinely dry and weighing about 2 3/4 oz (80 g). Blend it to a smooth puree with the eggs and the yolk. Mound the flour, add the green mixture and the salt and knead 12 to 15 minutes until smooth and elastic. Spinach dough starts wetter than it finishes, so resist adding flour in the first five minutes. Wrap tightly and rest 1 hour.

Roasting the shells for the bisque

Heat the olive oil in a wide saucepan until it shimmers and add the heads and shells. Press the heads with a spoon to release the juices and cook over high heat 4 to 5 minutes until deep red and smelling roasted. Add the shallot, carrot, celery and garlic, cook 3 minutes more, then stir in the tomato paste and let it darken for a minute. That minute matters: raw paste tastes tinny, cooked paste tastes sweet.

Deglazing and simmering the bisque

Pour in the Vermentino, scrape the base clean and reduce by half so the alcohol goes and the wine leaves only its acidity and citrus. Add the fish stock, thyme and bay leaf, bring to a bare simmer and hold it there 25 minutes. Never let a shellfish stock boil hard: the proteins turn it cloudy and the flavour goes flat and bitter. Skim once or twice and keep the heat low.

Straining and mounting the sauce

Pass the bisque through a fine mesh sieve, pressing the solids hard with a ladle, then strain it again through a clean sieve into a small pan. Reduce until about 1 cup (240 ml) remains and it lightly coats a spoon. Off the heat, once it stops steaming, whisk in the cold butter one cube at a time until glossy. If it boils after the butter goes in, it splits.

Mixing the filling

Drain the stracciatella 20 minutes and discard the milk that collects, then fold it with the mascarpone until just combined. Add the chopped prawn, the lemon zest, the chives and parsley, a little fine salt and white pepper, and fold twice more, no further. It should look marbled, the prawn still visible. Keep the bowl on ice, because warm stracciatella loosens and a loose filling cannot be piped or sealed.

Rolling the sfoglia and shaping the ravioli

Divide the dough in four, keeping three covered. Roll each piece to about 1 millimetre, thin enough for a hand to show through, dusting with semolina only where it sticks. Pipe mounds of filling along one sheet at 2 inch (5 cm) intervals, brush lightly with water, lay a second sheet over and press from the centre of each mound outward so trapped air escapes first. Cut with a round cutter and press each rim once more.

Salting the water and cooking the ravioli

Bring 5 quarts (4.7 litres) of water to the boil and salt it with 2 tablespoons of coarse salt, a lighter hand than for dry pasta because bottarga and bisque both bring salt of their own. Drop the heat until the surface barely shivers, since a rolling boil tears fresh seams. Cook the ravioli 3 to 4 minutes, until the edge is tender and the prawn only just set. Meanwhile warm the bisque without letting it simmer.

Finishing in the pan

Lift the ravioli out with a spider, never through a colander, and slide them into a wide pan with half a ladle of warm bisque. Off the heat, swing the pan slowly and add a spoonful of the starchy pasta water, which pulls the butter and stock into a glossy sauce that clings rather than pools. Twenty seconds is enough. Residual heat finishes the filling, and anything rougher splits the seams and overcooks the prawn.

Plating

Use wide shallow bowls, warmed but not hot. A plate straight from a high oven carries on cooking the filling and turns the prawn from silky to chalky within a minute.

Pour about three tablespoons of bisque into the base of each bowl and set five or six ravioli into it in a loose ring, not stacked. Lay one whole raw prawn tail across the centre, season it with a few flakes of Maldon and a drop of lemon oil, and let its sweetness sit against the cooked filling as a deliberate contrast.

Grate the bottarga over the plate at the last second, from a height and sparingly, so it falls as fine dust rather than a stripe. Add the chive batons, a few fronds of dill and bronze fennel, and finish with the rest of the lemon oil in small drops around the bisque, where they float and carry the citrus aroma up.

Professional Technique

The governing technique is cooking the filling with residual heat only. Red prawn protein begins to set at around 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius) and turns rubbery well before boiling point, so the filling never meets the water directly: the pasta is the insulation, and the three to four minutes are calculated for the sfoglia, not the prawn. Chopping by hand keeps the muscle fibres intact, so the pieces stay distinct and juicy instead of turning to paste.

The bisque is the second technique and it is a classical extraction, not a reduction of stock. Roasting the shells hard develops the Maillard compounds that give a shellfish sauce its depth, and pressing the heads releases the fat and tomalley that carry the aroma. The paste is cooked out to lose its raw acidity, the wine reduced to strip the alcohol, and the whole thing held below a simmer so it stays clear.

Mounting with cold butter off the heat is the finish. Cubes of cold butter whisked into a warm reduced stock disperse into droplets held by the gelatine already in the liquid, giving body and shine without cream. The emulsion is fragile: once made, the sauce can be kept warm but must never simmer again, or the fat separates and leaves an oily film.

Texture and Moisture Control

Stracciatella is mostly cream and it weeps, which makes it the main risk in the filling. Draining it for 20 minutes removes the free moisture that would otherwise turn to steam inside a sealed parcel and blow the seam open. Mascarpone is there for the same reason as much as for flavour: its fat binds what is left and gives the mixture enough body to pipe without running.

The dough carries its own water. Spinach squeezed only lightly makes a sticky sheet that needs extra flour, and every spoonful added after kneading starts makes the pasta tougher. Squeeze it until it feels like a dry sponge, weigh it after squeezing, and rest the dough a full hour before judging it.

In the pot the water sits just below a simmer, around 205 degrees Fahrenheit (96 degrees Celsius), which cooks the sfoglia through while keeping the centre gentle enough for the prawn. Adjust the sauce with the starchy cooking water rather than more stock, because the starch is what makes the butter emulsion cling. Add it a spoonful at a time: too much and the bisque goes dull instead of glossy.

Professional Mise en Place

Equipment and tools

Pasta machine, bench scraper, round cutter of 2 1/2 inches (6 cm)
Blender for the spinach, fine mesh sieve for the bisque
Piping bag, small ladle, spider skimmer
Wide saucepan for the shells, small pan for the sauce
Ice under the filling bowl, microplane for the bottarga

Prepared ahead

Bisque reduced up to 2 days ahead, butter only at service
Green dough made and rested, up to 1 day refrigerated
Prawns peeled and cleaned, kept on ice, on the day only
Ravioli shaped up to 2 hours ahead, uncovered and cold

Service setup

Pasta water at a shiver, salted lightly, ladle in it
Bisque warm and below a simmer, cold butter diced beside it
Bowls warm, bottarga, lemon oil and herbs within reach
Whole raw prawn tails on ice, seasoned only at plating

Chef Tips

Buy the prawns whole with the heads on, from someone who will tell you the boat and the day. Headless prawns cost you the bisque, where most of the flavour lives, and a red prawn not fresh enough to eat raw is not fresh enough for this recipe.

Season before the stracciatella goes in, not after. Once the cheese is folded through you cannot stir hard enough to distribute salt without breaking the marbling, so salt the chopped prawn and herbs first and then fold everything twice.

Keep the bottarga in the freezer and grate it frozen. At room temperature it smears on the microplane; frozen it falls in fine dry flakes that scatter evenly. A whole lobe wrapped well keeps for months and is better value than the jars.

If you cannot find stracciatella, tear the heart out of a whole burrata and drain it the same way. Do not use ricotta, which makes a grainy filling, and do not use mozzarella, which releases water in the pot.

Common Mistakes

Mincing the prawn in a processor. The blade shears the muscle fibres and turns firm sweet prawn into a wet paste that bleeds into the cheese. Chop by hand so the pieces stay distinct and the filling reads as marbled.

Using stracciatella straight from the tub. The cream clinging to it is free water, and inside a sealed raviolo it becomes steam that forces the seam open. Drain it 20 minutes and throw away what collects.

Boiling the bisque. A hard boil emulsifies the shell proteins into the liquid, turning it cloudy and bitter, and straining will not bring the clarity back. Hold a bare simmer for the full 25 minutes and skim.

Adding the butter over direct heat. The emulsion forms below a simmer. Whisked into bubbling liquid the butter melts and separates instead of dispersing, and the sauce arrives with an oily film.

Overcooking the ravioli. Past four minutes the prawn goes from silky to chalky and the stracciatella breaks. Pull them while the edge is just tender and let the warm bowl finish the work.

Wine Pairing

Vermentino di Gallura DOCG: The bottle that is already in the sauce, and the most coherent choice on the list. Its granite grown salinity and firm citrus acidity meet the bottarga instead of being flattened by it, and the bitter almond finish echoes the cured roe. There is enough texture to carry the butter in the bisque without the wine seeming thin.

Nuragus di Cagliari DOC: A lighter Sardinian white and the right answer if the bisque is served generously. High in acidity, low in alcohol and deliberately neutral, with green apple fruit, it rinses the palate without adding another aroma to a plate that already has prawn, lemon and cured roe.

Franciacorta DOCG: The sparkling option and a serious one. Extended lees ageing gives a brioche depth that sits beside the buttered bisque, while the fine bead and bracing acidity scrub the fat of the stracciatella off the palate. Choose a Brut or Pas Dose, because residual sugar fights the raw prawn.

Greco di Tufo DOCG: From the volcanic soils of Irpinia, and the most structured white here. It has real weight and a smoky mineral grip that stands up to a reduced shellfish sauce, and its stone fruit and citrus peel flatter the sweetness of the raw prawn rather than covering it.

Etna Bianco DOC: Carricante grown on the volcano, tense and high in acidity with an ashy, almost salty finish that belongs with anything from the Sicilian Channel. It is the Sicilian answer to a Sicilian prawn, and its lemon peel bite works with the lemon oil dropped over the plate.

Storage & Reheating

Eat this the day it is made: the filling contains raw shellfish and the whole point is freshness. Shaped uncooked ravioli hold refrigerated in a single layer on a semolina dusted tray, uncovered, for 2 hours at most. They do not freeze: the stracciatella separates on thawing and the prawn turns woolly.

The bisque is the one component that keeps properly. Reduced and unbuttered it holds refrigerated for 2 days and frozen for 2 months, so make a double batch while the shells are in front of you. Reheat it gently to just below a simmer and only then whisk in the cold butter, because a buttered sauce will not survive chilling and reheating.

Cooked ravioli do not reheat in any way worth recommending. If you have leftovers, refrigerate them in their sauce for a day and warm them covered with a tablespoon of water over very low heat for 3 minutes, accepting that the prawn will have lost its texture. Bottarga keeps for months in the freezer.

Nutrition

Per serving, based on 4 servings of 5 to 6 ravioli with sauce:

Calories: 690 kcal
Total Fat: 36 g
Saturated Fat: 19 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 15 g
Cholesterol: 310 mg
Sodium: 1050 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 58 g
Fiber: 3 g
Total Sugars: 4 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 34 g
Lactose: 4 g
Principal micronutrients: iodine, selenium, vitamin B12, calcium, phosphorus, iron, vitamin A