You know we are obsessed about homemade and we already shared with you our homemade pasta recipe. Pick that one up and once you get the hang of it, you’ll soon realise there are so many things you can do with it, including inventing your own filling for pasta, like we did with these mezzelune. Feel free to use this recipe as a basis for your own ideas on how to fill ravioli or mezzelune, and if you want to share your ideas with us, we are very interested to know what you would make. This recipe makes about 150 mezzelune, so have always a plan B filling in the fridge in case you run out of the one below!

Ingredients:

For the pasta:
Follow our homemade pasta recipe.
For the filling:
6 medium aubergines
100gr parmesan cheese or Grana Padano
50gr pine nuts (roasted)
4 leaves of basil
salt and pepper
one round stamp
a fork to help you close up the mezzelune

Step 1 – Place the aubergines in the oven at 180º for 40 to 45 minutes until they are completely roasted. Once they are out of the oven place them in a colander so that they lose all the water.

Step 2 – Roast the pine nuts and using a pestle and mortar crush them until they are reduced in crumbs.

Step 3 – Place the aubergines in a large bowl, and with the help of a fork, chop them so that they have a creamy consistency but are not completely mashed.

Step 4 – Add the pine nuts and keep mixing with the help of a fork or a wooden spoon.

Step 5 – Then add the grated parmesan and the thinly chopped basil leaves. Add salt and pepper to your taste and place the filling in the fridge to set.

Step 6 – After following the homemade pasta recipe, get to the point where you stretch the pasta in sheets. Once you have your thinnest sheets, with a round stamp, cut as many shapes as you can and place them, dusted in flour, on a big surface. Ideally, free your dining table for this sort of work, on a clean surface or clean table cloth.

Step 7 – Place a teaspoon of aubergine/eggplant filling on each round pasta shape, pushing the mixture only on one half of the disc and leaving a few millimetres of edge. Then fold the empty half of the pasta disc on top, so you create half a moon (mezzaluna) shape. To seal, you can help yourself with a fork, but as the pasta dries out in the process, the best way is to moist the edge a little before sealing.

Step 8 – Repeat the process until you run out of filling. Store your mezzelune in the freezer, divided in portions, making sure you add a lot of flour to separate them in the bags or freezer-friendly boxes, and take them out only when you are ready to put them in salted boiling water to cook. When they float, they are ready to be drained and enjoyed with a simple sauce that will bring out the flavours of your filling, like our Classic Tomato Sauce.

And what ingredients would you choose to fill your pasta? Leave a comment to let us know!