The first day it was on the menu at Sydney’s Menzies Bar, in superlative mega-venue Shell House, this lobster ravioli (part of a limited pasta special series last year) sold out within an hour – and it sold out again and again every single day for a week after that.
“We hand-rolled over 4000 ravioli in that week, it was labour of love,” says Shell House culinary director Joel Bickford.
All this to say that it's a dish well worth making at home.
You’ll need a pasta maker and a food processor for this recipe.
The Menzies Bar’s lobster ravioli
Serves 4
Preparation time: 1 hour, plus 1 hour resting
Cooking time: 2 hours 45 minutes
Ingredients
5 cherry tomatoes
Olive oil, for drizzling
Salt, for sprinkling
5g garlic paste
5g chilli paste
30ml pouring cream
20g butter
Pasta dough
4 eggs
400g 00 flour
Pinch of salt
Extra virgin olive oil, a splash
Filling
50g fresh raw lobster meat
50g green prawn meat
10g garlic
8g chilli
1 bunch chives, finely chopped
100ml cream
25ml soy sauce
1 lemon, zested and juiced
Lobster stock
Olive oil, to coat base of pan
1 clove garlic
1 bunch thyme
1kg lobster shells
1 carrot, roughly chopped
1 brown onion, roughly chopped
1 leek, roughly chopped
50g parsley stalks
1 tsp tomato paste
20ml brandy
2.5L water
Method
To make the pasta dough, put all the ingredients in a food processor and mix until you get a pliable dough. Knead gently for 2 minutes then cover with cling wrap and rest for 1 hour in the fridge.
For the filling, combine all the ingredients except the lemon and the soy sauce in a food processor and blitz until you get a smooth mix. Season with soy sauce, then add the zest and the juice of the lemon and combine.
Make the lobster stock in a large, wide heavy-based pot. Add the olive oil, garlic, thyme, the lobster shells, the vegetables and parsley, and cook until coloured. Add the tomato paste then deglaze with the brandy. Add the water and simmer for 90 minutes. Strain and set aside.
To make the ravioli, roll out the pasta to two 1mm-thick sheets of equal length using a pasta machine. Then, lay out the pasta sheets on a bench and spoon 10g balls of lobster mix onto one pasta sheet, evenly spaced. Place the second sheet of pasta over the lobster meat on the first sheet of pasta. Using a 5cm round cutter, cut into parcels filled with the lobster mix and seal edges with your fingers. Set aside.
Dress the cherry tomatoes with the olive oil and salt and place in the oven at 160°C for 45 minutes until slow roasted and dried.
Boil a large pot of salted water and add desired number of ravioli (6 per person suggested). Cook for two minutes.
While the ravioli are cooking, heat a pan and add 70ml lobster stock and reduce by half. (You will have leftover lobster stock.) Add the garlic, chilli and cream, and reduce by half. Whisk in butter and adjust with salt and pepper to taste.
Add ravioli straight into the sauce from the boiling water. Allow the sauce to reduce a little and to coat the pasta.
Arrange ravioli on plates, finish with sauce, and top with dried tomatoes, olive oil and sea salt.
