Gnudi

A ravioli filling rolled and cooked with the pasta left off, which is what the name means.

Egg. Not vegetarian — contains parmesan whose rennet the source does not name, ricotta whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 600 g ricotta, drained 24 hours
• 300 g spinach, cooked and squeezed very dry
• 100 g parmesan, grated
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 300 g fine semolina, for rolling and storing
• 80 g butter and a few sage leaves, to dress

Method

1. Drain the ricotta in a cloth for 24 hours, weighted. Squeeze the cooked spinach until it is genuinely dry, then chop it finely.
2. Mix them with the parmesan, yolk, flour, nutmeg and salt. ONLY TWO SPOONS OF FLOUR: these are 'naked', a ravioli filling with no pasta round it, and flour enough to make them robust would make them dumplings instead.
3. Roll walnut-sized balls and sit them in a tray of semolina, deep enough to half bury them.
4. REFRIGERATE THEM IN THE SEMOLINA FOR 24 HOURS, turning once. The semolina draws moisture from the surface and forms a thin skin, and that skin is the only thing holding them together in the water. Cooked the same day they fall apart.
5. Brush the loose semolina off and boil them in batches in barely simmering salted water — a rolling boil breaks them.
6. They are ready about a minute after they rise.
7. Melt the butter with the sage until it foams, and spoon it over rather than tossing them.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes