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NICE COOKINGCouhina nissarda

Main dishes

Niçois ravioli with daube and Swiss chard

Li raïola nissardi

Niçois ravioli are thin egg-pasta squares filled with leftover daube and Swiss chard, boiled and served with the stew's sauce and grated cheese.

Published

Freshly cut square ravioli with fluted edges, dusted with flour and laid out on baking paper before cooking
Photo credit: Ramagliolo9 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Prep
1 h 30 min
Cook
12 min
Rest
30 min
Total
2 h 12 min
Serves
6
Difficulty
Medium

Method

  1. Make the daube the day before. On the day, lift out 600 g of the beef, with a few of its carrots if you like, and keep the sauce aside for serving.

  2. Heap the flour on the work surface, make a well and add the eggs, the salt, the oil and a little of the water. Mix, adding water gradually, until the dough is firm and supple and does not stick to the rolling pin.

  3. Wrap the dough and leave it to rest for 30 minutes while you make the filling.

  4. Separate the chard leaves from the stems. Drop the leaves into simmering water for about 4 minutes, drain, then squeeze them by hand until no more water comes out.

  5. Chop the chard and the daube beef finely with a knife. Do not use an electric chopper, which turns them into a paste.

  6. Mix the chopped chard and beef with the 2 eggs, the cheese, pepper, a pinch of nutmeg and a little salt. If the filling feels dry, stir in a spoonful of daube sauce. Chill it briefly.

  7. Roll the dough out as thin as you can. With a pasta machine, fold the dough over and pass it through several times at the widest setting before thinning it step by step.

  8. About 5 cm (2 in) from the top edge of the dough, set a row of teaspoon-sized mounds of filling, 2 cm (3/4 in) apart. Fold the top edge over them and press the dough down between the mounds with your fingertips.

  9. Cut the ravioli apart with a pastry wheel, toss them in flour and lay them in one layer on a floured board.

  10. Lower the ravioli into a large pot of boiling salted water (6 to 7 litres) and cook for 8 to 12 minutes. Taste one from minute 8. Lift them out with a skimmer.

  11. Serve in deep plates with the hot daube sauce spooned over and plenty of grated cheese.

Tips

  • Chop by hand. A knife leaves texture in the filling; an electric chopper makes a paste.
  • Squeeze the chard until no water comes out, or the filling turns wet.
  • Go easy on salt in the filling and in the dough. The ravioli cook in salted water and the daube sauce is already seasoned.
  • Flour the ravioli well and keep them in one layer, so they do not stick together while you finish shaping.

Watch it being made

ravioli nicois de daube — cuisine nicoise (YouTube). The player loads only when you press play.

Niçois ravioli, made from yesterday’s daube

Niçois ravioli (raviolis à la daube in French, li raïola nissardi in Niçois) are small squares of egg pasta filled with minced daube and Swiss chard, boiled and served with the daube’s own sauce and grated cheese. The filling is the leftover beef of a daube niçoise, so the dish starts a day early. The cuisine niçoise YouTube channel presents them as the dish made for feast days, and Midi en France calls them a way to use up the daube the next day.

The City of Nice lists “raviolis à la niçoise” among the city’s typical specialities and publishes its own recipe, which the quantities here follow. Chard is the other half of the filling, as it is across the cooking of Nice.

How cooks in Nice make the dough and the filling

The idea is the same everywhere. The dough, the chard and the chopping are where cooks differ.

Version Dough Chard Served with
City of Nice Flour, eggs, salt, water, optional olive oil Blanched, greens only Daube sauce and grated cheese
cuisine niçoise channel (2017) Egg yolks and oil, rolled thin and folded through the machine Cooked dry, wrung out, about as much as daube Melted butter, a little daube, parmesan
Jean-Christophe Pagnac (2020) Kneaded by hand, extra yolks, rested about half an hour Boiled, wrung in a cloth, chopped coarsely A little daube sauce to finish
Maison Tosello (2014) Egg-free dough, shaped on a ravioli mould Not stated Sauce and parmesan

The cuisine niçoise channel insists on a thin, elastic dough, folded over itself several times in the machine, and on mincing by hand. Its filling gets a little nutmeg and little salt. Pagnac, who says he follows his grandmother’s recipe, chops the chard roughly so the filling keeps some texture, and keeps only a little sauce back to season it. The City of Nice recipe adds a spoonful of daube juice only if the filling looks dry.

Ingredients, substitutes and equipment

Use beef from a real daube, braised in red wine, with the carrots that cooked alongside it. The filling takes its flavour from that braise. If you have no daube in the fridge, cook one first.

Use the leaves of the chard only. Midi en France keeps the white stems for another dish, such as grilled chard stems with anchovy vinaigrette. For the cheese, the city recipe names parmesan or sbrinz.

A rolling pin is enough. Roll the dough as thin as you can, and keep a large pot of salted water ready: the city recipe calls for 6 to 7 litres.

Variations: pelotons and chard ravioli

Pelotons are the same filling without the pasta. Jean-Claude Martin, on Midi en France in 2018, calls them ravioli without a shirt. He rolls the filling into balls about the size of a large marble, sets them in a layer of flour and boils them like ravioli. His filling has chard, daube, eggs, parmesan, garlic, parsley, basil and olive oil, with about 350 g of daube.

In ARTE’s report on chard ravioli from the hinterland of Nice, the starred chef Christophe Billaud sweats the chard with onion to soften its bitterness. He adds a little cream, which he describes as the mountain way where the coast would use olive oil.

Serving

Serve the ravioli hot in deep plates, with the reheated daube sauce spooned over and grated cheese on top. The cuisine niçoise channel finishes them with melted butter as well.

Questions & answers

Can I make the dough ahead?

Yes. The cuisine niçoise channel makes the dough the day before and keeps it in the fridge, and says it can also be frozen. Roll and fill it on the day.

Do I need a pasta machine?

No. The City of Nice recipe rolls the dough with a rolling pin. If you use a machine, make the dough a little softer, as the city recipe advises. Maison Tosello shows a ravioli mould as another option.

Which cheese goes in the filling?

The City of Nice recipe asks for a dry, grated mountain cow's-milk cheese and names parmesan or sbrinz. Use the same cheese in the filling and on the plate.

Sources

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