Our pals at Rio Vista Olives sent us the incredible oil that we cook with in this post. Like everything that we recommend on our blog, we use and love their products, and hope that you will too!
The Story
This week we wanted to bring you a filled pasta dish that you can knock up in less than an hour; something packed with fresh flavour, and accompanied by a sauce that you can make without a single pot or pan. These simple pansotti, filled with rainbow chard, radicchio, mustard greens, marjoram, and ricotta are what we came up with. They’re served with a delicious walnut sauce that’s made entirely with a stick blender!
We were surprised ourselves at how well these flavours came together, and how pleasantly different the whole dish was compared to our more familiar pasta flavours. It was also so easy to make, and extremely flexible as a recipe, so you’ve got no excuse to not give it a shot.
The Pasta
Pansotti are a self-fulfilling prophecy. Meaning ‘pot-bellied’, pack too many of these bad boys away and you’ll start to resemble what you eat. There are a few different ways to fold pansotti, but we’ve opted for a simple half fold, rather than also wrapping the edges around to meet. This is the pasta equivalent of standing up straight and sucking your gut in for a photo, as opposed to slouching in the armchair.
The filling for this pasta is a sort of choose-your-own-bitter-green-adventure, then mix it with ricotta kind of affair. Pansotti are traditionally filled with a mix of Ligurian greens: things like chicory, nettles, and borage. But if you don’t have a nearby field to wander into and forage from, try substituting with things like chard, radicchio, and endive. We tend to use whatever’s growing out the back and looking fresh at the market, so this time around it was a perfect, peppery mix of rainbow chard, radicchio, mustard greens, and marjoram. Always go easy on that marjoram, otherwise the unassuming but plucky little thing will dominate all of the other ingredients.
This week’s actual dough is a fairly standard mix of 1 egg to 100g of flour, with an extra bit of yolk thrown in. Roll that out to a medium-thin thickness of 5-6 on the pasta machine, cut it into squares of around 70mm, and then dollop or squeeze in the filling before folding one corner over to its opposite and sealing.
For the sauce, roast your walnuts (if starting with unroasted), before soaking them and the bread in water to soften. Then drain and blitz with all of the other sauce ingredients.
Stir it through your cooked pansotti, garnish with micro-radish leaves, and you’re done!
Remember to substitute wherever needed. You can use a different dough, maybe like our paccheri or tortiglioni, different greens, even different nuts. Cook it with care and love and you’ll have yourself one fine plate of pasta. Buon appetito!
– Al & Al.
Equipment
- Pasta roller and cutter (if not using a rolling pin and knife)
- Air tight container for resting
- Piping bag with medium round tip (alternatively, you can use a teaspoon)
- Food processor
Ingredients
Pasta
- 160 g 00 flour
- 40 g durum semolina flour
- splash olive oil extra virgin (we used Rio Vista Olives’ Olio Nuovo Frantoio Correggiola)
- 2 eggs
- 2 egg yolks
- pinch salt
Pasta Filling
- 200 g total rainbow chard radicchio, mustard greens (can substitute for endive, chicory, or similar)
- 100 g ricotta
- 1 sprig marjoram
- salt and pepper to season
Walnut Sauce
- 1 small slice of bread
- 2 tbsp milk
- 80 g shelled walnuts
- 4 tbsps water
- 1/2 clove garlic
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- salt and pepper to season
- micro-radish leaves to serve
Instructions
Pasta
- Combine the 00 and durum semolina flours, and the salt, and form into a well. Add the eggs, egg yolks, and oil into the centre, and stir with a fork to combine.
- Form into a ball using your hands, and knead vigorously for 10 minutes. If the dough sticks to your hands or the kneading surface, add 1-2 teaspoons of flour at a time; if it is too dry, add water in similar amounts.
- Transfer to an airtight container, and leave to rest for 30 minutes, away from heat or direct sunlight.
- Depending on the texture that you’d like in your filling, either finely chop or purée your greens and marjoram. Note that tearing up raw lettuce leaves will cause them to turn brown, but the the taste won’t be affected. Alternatively, blanch the leaves for a few minutes before chopping to retain the original colour.
- Stir the chopped greens through the ricotta, and season with salt and pepper.
- Once your dough has rested, divide it into 4 portions, storing those that you’re not working on back in the airtight container. Pass through a pasta machine on the thickest setting a few times, folding the dough over itself in between passes, before incrementally stepping it through to a thickness of 6. Cut each sheet into squares of about 70mm.
- Use a piping bag with a medium round tip to squeeze a grape-sized amount of filling into the middle of each pasta square. Alternatively, use a teaspoon.
- Fold one corner to its opposite, and seal the edges ensuring that no air is trapped.
- Transfer to a lightly floured, baking paper lined tray, and refrigerate for up to one day.
Sauce
- For the sauce, roast the walnuts for 5 minutes in a 200 degree Celsius oven, or until they begin to lightly brown. Soak them and the bread, torn, in a cup of water for 5-10 minutes.
- Drain the nuts and bread, and then blend with the milk, garlic, and lemon juice. Add up to 4 tbsp of water to achieve the desired consistency. It should be creamy, but not runny. Season with salt and pepper.
- Drop the pansotti into a large pot of lightly salted boiling water, and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until the pasta is al dente with no white left in the dough when cut open.
- Drain, and stir through the walnut sauce. Serve with a sprinkled handful of micro-radish leaves.
