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| Taken with a Canon Eos 300d digital SLR |
I’m not going to lie to you, this one takes a bit of work. From making pasta to cooking a pasta sauce and char-grilling the chicken and courgette it’s not exactly quick (or easy) but it’s a tasty treat and it makes a change from all of the other pasta dishes you’ll regularly make. Open ravioli should be renamed lazy ravioli because you just pile it up like a loose lasagne but with fresh pasta.
PASTA
Follow this link for how to make fresh pasta, if you can't or don't want to then you can buy lasagna sheets from the supermarket but it's a lot cheaper to make it yourself. For the pasta above I used a duck egg that you can buy from Tesco and they aren’t that expensive. One egg and a handful of flour makes enough for two people so it wont break the bank. You need to make your pasta first and cook it last so get it out of the way.
CHAR-GRILLING
You really need a griddle pan, not just for this but in general. They’re great for cooking meat and you can make your summer veg look a tasty treat when you char-grill them. Use a speed peeler to cut strips from a courgette and char them on the pan. Cut a pepper into big pieces and do the same on the griddle. While the pan is still really hot oil up and season a couple of chicken breasts and pop them in the pan, leave them to sear so the heat cooks 1/3 of the way up the meat then turn them over to sear on the other side. They won’t be cooked in the middle but if you wrap them in tin foil and leave them somewhere warm they’ll cook through in around 5-10 mins.
SAUCE
Empty a can of chopped tomatoes into a pan with a chopped clove of garlic and some basil, seasoning and a good pinch of sugar. You need to cook the water out of them so reduce to a paste.
Cook the pasta for 3 mins and drain (you have to work quite quickly here or the pasta gets messy) put one sheet of pasta on the plate with some sauce, chicken and courgette, layer up like this for three layers then top with a slice of Parma ham and a handful of Parmesan. Drizzle with olive oil and serve.
A fancy looking meal for just over £2 a serving
