Make your own Seadas

Seadas are a Sardinian speciality – sweet ravioli filled with cheese and drizzled with bittersweet honey (acacia or orange blossom honey is the closest you’re likely to find in the UK).

Here’s our take – by no means as good as you’ll eat on the island, but they’re fun to make, and easy to get the kids involved.

Seada pasta can be made with or without eggs. Personally, I prefer egg pasta. For 6-8 seadas:

  • 200g hard ‘00’ flour (or mix 50/50 with semolina)
  • 2 large free-range eggs (or 2 medium eggs with an extra egg yolk)
  • Pinch of salt
  • Generous tablespoon of caster sugar.

Either do it the traditional way – make a circle with the flour and crack the eggs and other ingredients into the middle, draw the flour into the middle and mix until eventually you form a dough. Or (like me) put it in a mixer with a dough hook.

Knead it a little – it should be smooth and elastic (you'll have to judge this yourself), and then let it rest in a bowl or fridge for at least 20 mins. The either roll it out nice and thin, or use a pasta machine to produce sheets (I roll it out to the second thinnest setting).

For the filling you will need a decent amount of Pecorino Sarde (a good supermarket or deli cheese counter should have this – it’s a hard, salty cheese that isn’t as full on as Grana Padano or Parmesan). Authentic Seadas would use thin discs of cheese, but you’ll probably find it easier to work if you grate it. Add a small amount of lemon zest if you like.

  Seadas-mould

The shape is up to you. Thin, big discs, or smaller fritters. I used both a cookie cutter and a mould in the example. If you have a ravioli wheel then you could make larger, rectangular ones. Regardless, brush the pasta with water, dollop or place the filling in the middle, put on the lid (or next sheet of pasta) and press down firmly to seal and remove as much air as possible

Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a saucepan / deep fat fryer, and fry the seadas in batches. Cook for a minute or two and turn over – they will usually puff up – depending on how much air you removed from inside the seadas. You may also see the odd bubble appear on the surface.

  Seadas - cookie cutter on top, mould on bottom

When golden, remove with slotted spoon, drain on kitchen paper and serve warm, drizzled with honey. If you want to ruin your Sardinian credibility, dust with icing sugar like I’ve done.

Enjoy while warm!