Name: Restaurant De Belhamel
Address: Brouwersgracht 60, Amsterdam, 1013 GX, NL
Telephone: 020 622 1095
Price range: €€
Rating: 4.4

Netherlands

Amsterdam

Centrum

Restaurant De Belhamel

Two thin sheets of egg pasta sealed around a spoonful of filling, cut into squares or rounds, boiled for a few minutes and dressed simply: ravioli are the oldest and most widespread of Italy's stuffed pastas, mentioned in Genoese and Venetian documents from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and now made, under one name or another, in every region. The classic fillings are ricotta with spinach or chard in Emilia and Tuscany, meat in Piedmont's agnolotti and Liguria's ravioli di carne, fish along the Ligurian coast, and potato with mint in Sardinia's culurgiones; each region also has its own shape, from the half-moon of the Emilian tortello to the pleated culurgiones. What distinguishes a ravioli from a tortellino or a cappelletto is only the fold. The dressing is kept quiet, butter and sage, a light tomato sauce or the meat's own juices, so the filling is tasted.

Fresh pasta is the first requirement: soft wheat flour, or a mix with semola, kneaded with whole eggs at about one egg per hundred grams, rested, then rolled thin enough that the filling shows through, which in Emilia means close to a millimetre. The sheet is laid out, small mounds of filling are placed at even intervals, a second sheet is laid over, and the air is pressed out around each mound before cutting with a wheel or a stamp, because trapped air bursts the pasta in the water. Fillings are drained and dry enough to hold shape: ricotta is strained overnight, greens are squeezed hard, meat is braised and chopped fine with parmesan and nutmeg. They cook in well-salted water at a steady, not rolling, boil for three to five minutes, until the seam is tender, and are lifted out rather than poured into a colander, then turned gently in the sauce for a moment.

Judge the pasta first, because it is the hardest part to buy and the easiest to fake. It should be thin, silky and yellow with egg, with the seam only slightly thicker than the rest and no dry white edge; thick, pale, chewy pasta points to a machine-made product or a factory packet. Cut one open: the filling should fill the pocket, be seasoned clearly and hold together without being pasty or wet. Mark down ravioli that have burst or leaked, a sauce heavy enough to bury the filling, cream added to a butter-and-sage dressing, a sweet or bland ricotta, and frozen ravioli served in a restaurant that claims fresh pasta, recognisable by uniform size, a gummy seam and a grey filling. Six to eight large ravioli is a portion; a pile of twenty small ones is a different, lesser dish.

Ravioli

Pumpkin ravioli was delicious, they offer butter and bread before main course which was super delicious too!

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