Chocolate ravioli is a fancy dish, which I advise you trying at least once. I was lucky to find some super sweet apricots at the local market one of these days. Later on, while relaxing on the sun and enjoying these fruits, I was thinking of a perfect company for them. And I thought of chocolate… After some serious tests, I can say that apricots go well with chocolate but there is one condition – the fruits have to be really sweet. Do not try to use under ripe apricots with chocolate, as they are too sharp for it.
These deep fried chocolate ravioli turned out to become my very new favorite combination. They just need to be slightly cooked, so that the filling won’t have time to change a lot and you will find it at the same state you put it inside the raw dough. The dough itself has a nice chocolaty flavor, strong enough to emphasize on the sweetness of the apricot filling. The most important trick is not to overcook the ravioli – otherwise you risk ending up with burned bitter dough and not so tasty filling.
Chocolate ravioli with apricot filling
To serve approximately 18 ravioli 10 cm diameter
Ingredients
Filling:
- 500 gr apricots (stoned)
- 50 gr castor sugar
Dough:
- 115 gr flour
- 1 egg + yolk (reserve the egg white)
- 20 gr cacao powder
- 15 gr sugar
Plus
- 1 liter sunflower oil to fry
- Icing sugar to dust
Instructions
Filling:
- Roughly chop the stoned apricots and place them in the heavy bottomed saucepan. Add sugar and 2 table spoons of water.
- Slowly bring to a boil. Cook on a medium heat stirring from time to time for about half an hour until apricot mixture thickens and becomes like a jam. Transfer to a bowl and leave to cool.
Dough:
- Sift the flour with the cacao powder add the sugar and mix everything. Put ingredients on the working surface and make a well in the middle to place eggs. Mix ingredients with your hands to make a smooth dough adding 1 or 2 tablespoons of water if needed or a little more flour. Wrap in a plastic film and put in the fridge for about 15 minutes.
- Set up the pasta machine or get your rolling pin ready.
- If you use the pasta machine, divide your dough into halves. Wrap the second halve in a plastic and roll first one to make it around ½ cm thick. Pass trough the pasta machine on a widest setting, fold it and pass again. Repeat three times. Adjust the pasta machine setting (reduce the thickness of rollers) and repeat tree times more. Reduce the thickness again and repeat until you will rich almost last one setting. Don’t make dough too thin, as it can split up during frying.
- Lay rolled out dough on the lightly dusted working surface and cut out discs using a cookie cutter or whatever you have on hand.
- Place a small amount of filling on the each disc leaving a border. Don’t be tempted to put too much filling, otherwise the ravioli may explode during frying. Lightly beat the remaining egg white and brush the borders of the discs with it. Cover ravioli with a clean kitchen towel and repeat the process with the second half of the dough.
Process:
- To fry ravioli pour the sunflower oil in a deep pan and heat it up to 175 C (it is best to use special thermometer if you have one).
- Carefully dip the ravioli down into the hot oil and cook not more than 1-1, 5 minute. This should be enough to make them golden without burning them. You can use a skimmer to lower floating ravioli into the oil to make them golden from all sides. Cook in batches and when ready, place them on a paper towel to get rid of the excessive oil.
Dust with some icing sugar end enjoy!
Notes
You can prepare the filling even the night before.
