Agnolotti with goat’s cheese, peas and mint
Make delicious filled pasta without making pasta – my shortcut uses Asian dumpling wrappers instead.
These are so easy that a child could make them. In fact, that's a pretty good idea: get children to make them. It's a great wet weather activity for them and they can eat what they make. Bargain.
A good part of the ease is not having to make pasta – not a shockingly difficult task in itself, but I’m not going to do it from scratch on a weeknight. Gow gee (also called gyoza or wonton) wrappers are made of flour and water, so they're just pasta by another name. They’re fixtures in the fridge section of most Asian grocery stores. Because they come already rolled and cut, filling them is a snap.
This recipe makes 12, which is two generous servings. If you're in an efficient mood, scale up the quantities, get a little production line going and use the whole pack of wrappers in one hit. Freeze individual serves in little resealable bags and you can cook them straight from frozen, adding 2 minutes to the cooking time, for an instant, effortless dinner.
Agnolotti with goat’s cheese, peas and mint
Makes 12.
12 gow gee (gyoza) wrappers
for the filling:
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 spring onions (scallions), finely sliced
25g (1 oz) frozen peas
50g (2 oz) ricotta
50g (2 oz) goat’s cheese
2 tablespoons fresh mint, chopped
¼ teaspoon sea salt flakes
to serve:
2 tablespoons butter
25g (1 oz) frozen peas
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated
1 tablespoon mint leaves
To make the filling, warm the olive oil over medium heat in a small frying pan and sauté the spring onion until soft and becoming translucent. Add the peas and cook for about 3 minutes, until tender. Remove from the heat and set aside.
In a small bowl, combine the ricotta and goat’s cheese with a fork. Add the mint, salt and the pea and onion mixture. Mash together with a fork until well combined.
Put a teaspoonful of the mixture on one side of each gow gee wrapper. Wet the edges with your finger and fold in half, pressing together with the tines of a fork to seal.
Cook the filled wrappers in lightly salted boiling water for 6 minutes.
While the pasta cooks, melt the butter in the frying pan. Add the peas and cook for 3 minutes.
Drain the pasta and transfer to plates. Spoon over the buttery peas, some Parmesan, a few mint leaves and serve immediately.
