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Raviolis Farce

Ravioli filled with ground fowl, curd, Parmesan, spinach, and spices, baked with cheese and Madeira.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 603 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Raviolis Farce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Pound the meat in a mortar until thoroughly ground.

  2. Add curd, Parmesan, spinach, pepper, salt, and nutmeg; mix well.

  3. Moisten with egg yolks and combine into a smooth mixture.

Shape the raviolis

  1. Roll out the paste and place small balls of the mixture on it, about 2 inches apart.

  2. Fold the paste over the balls and seal with your thumb, then cut into half-moons.

  3. Let the raviolis dry on a dish for some time.

Cook and serve

  1. Blanch the raviolis in boiling broth for 15 minutes, then drain on a napkin.

  2. Butter a soup tureen lining, layer raviolis and grated cheese alternately, finishing with cheese on top.

  3. Moisten with Madeira and gravy, then bake in a slow oven until heated through.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Spinach + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Parmesan cheese + spinachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Pheasant + spinachtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the filling into a smooth, cohesive mixture that holds its shape.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and richness to the filling.
Fowl meat
Provides the main body and substance of the filling once ground.
Curd
Adds moisture and a soft, creamy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Moisten with egg yolks and combine into a smooth mixture. Egg yolks bind the ground meat and curd into a cohesive filling. Adding them unevenly or too much can make the mixture loose or runny, which makes the raviolis hard to seal and likely to burst during blanching.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, parmesan cheese, spinach, pepper, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, parmesan cheese, spinach, pepper, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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