Holy Moly Ravioli

In an earlier post about a delicious grilled cheese sandwich I made, I mentioned that the inspiration came from a food truck I went to last November. I also said I tasted something else that blew my mind. In that post I said my goal was to make those two items at some point. A few weeks ago, I accomplished the grilled cheese. I can now say I also accomplished the deep-fried ravioli.

I never thought of deep-frying pasta but it was quite a genius thing to do. Actually, the food truck I got it from is probably my favourite food truck in Ontario because of the owners’ creativity with the menu.

Last Thursday, I invited my friends over to my house. One of the menu items was breaded and deep-fried ravioli with marinara sauce. A few of my friends are vegetarian and many of my friends are not big meat eaters so I stuck to a spinach and ricotta cheese stuffed ravioli that everyone would enjoy!

The recipe was dead simple. It just took a while to bread each ravioli and to fry them in batches. But that’s where my handy assistant [also known as my good friend] came along to help me out!

They turned out great. If I could have made the ravioli myself, they would have been stuffed to the max as the ravioli did lack filling. On their own they were crispy and golden delicious, but sprinkling them with fresh-chopped parsley and dipping them in the roasted garlic and herbs marinara sauce made them taste even better!

Breaded and deep-fried spinach and ricotta cheese ravioli from Toasted Tangerine

TOTAL TIME

30 minutes

INGREDIENTS

• 1 package of store-bought spinach and cheese ravioli
• 1 cup of buttermilk
• 2 cups of italian-style breadcrumbs (with herbs and parmesan cheese)
• vegetable or canola oil for deep-frying
• 1 can or jar of marinara sauce
• fresh-chopped parsley [optional]

PREPARATION

1. Fill a frying pan/pot with 2 inches of oil. Heat over medium heat.
2. Prepare two shallow bowls. One for buttermilk and the other for breadcrumbs. Dip each ravioli in the buttermilk then place into breadcrumbs to coat. Place on a pan/tray/plate.
3. Once the oil is hot and ready, fry the ravioli in small batches, flipping them halfway to cook evenly. Once golden brown, 3-5 minutes, transfer fried ravioli to a plate lined with paper towel to drain excess oil.
4. Serve sprinkled with parsley (or parmesan cheese) and with warm marinara sauce for dipping.