Asparagus Cream Ravioli - Dell'Ugo Recipe No.1

When I read through the Dell'Ugo recipe card No.1, I was sceptical about whether it would be any good. It only uses a handful of ingredients which made me worry it would be bland. A while back I had tried the Asparagus & Mozzarela Ravioli but with a tomato sauce which was totally overpowering and resulted in the pasta filling being virtually tasteless. If it hadn't been for my previous successes with the Dell'Ugo recipe cards, I wouldn't have ever gone back to this particular flavour, however, I have decided to try out each and every Dell'Ugo recipe card so I might as well start at the beginning, with the first card, even though we are not keen on creamy sauces in this house!

I had to make mine to serve three people with large appetites but I only had one bunch of asparagus so I just made it with what I had. My version is below.

Asparagus Cream Ravioli - Dell'Ugo Recipe No.1
Serves 3

Ingredients:
1 bunch of asparagus
170ml tub of double cream
3 garlic cloves, peeled & left whole but crushed a little bit to release more flavour
75g parmesan, half grated, half shaved - I used a cheddar cheese slice because I didn't know of nay other way to shave the parmesan as a result it came out quite chunky!
2 x 250g Aspragus ravioli

Method:

• Bring a large pan of water to the boil for your pasta.
• Meanwhile, cut off the tips of the asapragus and set aside.
• Trim the very end bits off the stems and discard. Chop up the stalks.
• In a saucepan, gently bring to boil the cream and garlic. Once boiled, take off the heat and remove the garlic cloves.
• Once the pan of water is at boiling point, add the asparagus stalks and cook for 4-5 minutes until soft.
• Drain and add them to the cream along with the grated parmesan.
• Blend until smooth with a handheld blender (my brilliant Braun one has been going strong for 15 years!). You'll end up with a very bright green, creamy sauce!
• Make sure your pan of water (which might be a bit green from cooking the stalks) is boiling and add the asparagus tips. Put in the pasta and boil for three minutes.
• Drain. Take out some of the tips to garnish the dish at the end,
• Return pasta and rest of tips to the pan, pour over your sauce and gently toss to ensure all the pasta is coated.
• Serve with the set aside tips and shavings (or in my case, chunks) of asparagus.
• I accompanied my pasta with a simple salad.

Verdict:

Delicious! For so few ingredients this dish is very tasty! I love asparagus too so I'm happy to have found a new way of utilising it other than in soup or as a vegetable side. It's a little bit of a faff with the puréeing and all but it's worth it and overall was still a pretty quick dinner to prepare,

Probably quite fattening with all the cream and Parmesan so it won't be going into my regular repertoire of mid week family meals but I'll certainly make it again some time.

I think I'd use less cream next time as there was too much sauce - even with two packets of pasta. I only upped the cream quantity by a bit, not double for 2 packs so I should imagine if you followed the recipe for one pack your ravioli would be swimming in it.