Summertime is the best season for flavorful produce here in New Jersey– peaches, melons, tomatoes, and sweet corn, among others. That’s why we’re known as the “Garden State!” I hope you’re in the midst of corn season too because you’ve got to try this luscious dish to be savored only when fresh corn on the cob is available. These ricotta-stuffed ravioli are bathed in a sauce based on butter, cream and sweet corn. This dish is not only delicious but really quick to make too, assuming you use purchased ravioli. Strip the corn from the cobs and mince the herbs.
Place the ravioli into a pot of water that’s come to a rolling boil.
For this dish, I bought cheese ravioli from Pastosa in Manasquan, NJ. The flagship store is in Brooklyn, but there are several other locations in New York and New Jersey. I got to the store just as it was closing at 6 pm so had little time to browse, but was amazed at the large selection of Italian products, fresh meats and prepared foods. I can’t wait to go back and peruse longer.
The sauce comes together quickly while the ravioli are boiling. Just melt the butter in the pan, and add the rest of the ingredients. Let the sauce reduce slightly, then add the ravioli directly to the pan once they’re cooked.
Don’t worry if a little water comes along with the ravioli. You can just let it cook a couple more minutes to reduce further.
The first time I made this, I used home-made ravioli and white corn, which has become the most prevalent in markets these days. If you can find yellow corn, it really makes for a prettier dish. And if you can find ravioli as good as Pastosa makes, save yourself the time and trouble of making your own.
Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what’s cooking in Ciao Chow Linda’s kitchen each day (and more)
I love all kinds of lasagna – from Italian-American style red-sauce, ricotta-filled lasagna, to the traditional Italian lasagna from Emilia-Romagna that uses no ricotta but béchamel sauce instead. This recipe is the latter, and with spring upon us here in the Northeast U.S., artichokes are in season so why not make them the star of the dish? I added mushrooms too, but you can eliminate them and just feature artichokes. Feel free to trim and cook fresh artichokes, but they’re also available frozen, which is what I used, and they are a huge time-saver.
However, I did make my own pasta from scratch and it’s a game changer. If you don’t want to make your own pasta, a good substitute is a brand like Rana that’s as close to homemade as I’ve ever found (but there’s nothing like freshly homemade pasta for its toothiness and supple texture.)
Make the pasta and let it sit while you prepare the rest. You’ll use only half this amount of pasta for this recipe. Use the rest to make fettuccine or fazzoletti or whatever other shape you like.
After making the pasta, sauté the mushrooms. Make sure to cook them on high heat and leave them alone rather than continually tossing them, so they develop a nice brown outer coating.
Set the mushrooms aside in a bowl and saute the shallots and artichoke hearts in the same pan, then combine them all in a bowl. Cut some of the artichokes in half if they’re too thick.
Time to make the béchamel sauce. Place the butter in a pan with the flour and cook those together for a couple of minutes to eliminate a “flour-y” taste. Then slowly add the milk, the broth (if using), the bay leaf and other seasonings, whisking all the time. I don’t like the béchamel to become too thick, because the pasta absorbs a lot of it and the lasagna can easily become too dry if the sauce is too thick. So don’t let it get as thick as pudding, for example. If it does, thin it out with more milk or broth. It should closer in thickness to pourable brown gravy.
Now that the béchamel is made, boil the pasta sheets. They will need only a minute in the boiling water, since they’ll cook more in the casserole once it’s in the oven. Drain well, and/or pat dry.
Butter the casserole first, then pour in a little béchamel. Place the first layer of pasta in the casserole, cutting to fit.
Add half the mushroom and artichoke mixture, more béchamel, some parmesan and dabs of taleggio cheese.
Add another layer of pasta, cutting to fit.
Then layer on more béchamel, the rest of the mushrooms and artichokes, and more parmesan and taleggio.
Cover with another layer of pasta and the rest of the béchamel, more parmesan and more taleggio cheese. (A diet dish this is not!)
Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour-40 minutes until browned on top and piping hot. I know it will be hard to resist cutting into it right away, but let it rest for at least 15 minutes before trying to slice it, or it will spill out and not hold its shape.
Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what’s cooking in Ciao Chow Linda’s kitchen each day (and more)
These little squares of stuffed pasta are called “spoja lorda” and are rarely seen outside of Italy. Even in the region of Emilia Romagna, where they’re from, they hard to find outside the province of Ravenna. The name, derived from the local dialect, is from “sfoglia sporca” or dirty pasta, harkening back to times when scraps were used to make the pasta and the stuffing. The stuffing is spread thinly across the pasta, just enough to “dirty” the pasta, and they’re traditionally served in a broth. Some may split open during cooking, “dirtying” the broth as well.
I normally use a food processor to mix my pasta dough, but was feeling the urge to make it all by hand recently. I used a mix of 00 flour, all-purpose flour and semolina flour, but I don’t recommend using all three for this pasta, especially not the hard, durum semolina, which made it very difficult to roll. Semolina is a coarser, more yellow flour that’s also higher in gluten and protein. It’s great for tagliatelle, spaghetti or pappardelle, but not so much for stuffed pasta. Next time, I’m going with the softer, 00 flour that I normally use when making ravioli or anolini.
It’s fun to make the dough the old-fashioned way, creating a “volcano” and incorporating the flour and the eggs.
Start out using a fork until the dough becomes too stiff. Then use your hands to knead it until it’s smooth. Let it rest at least a half hour while you prepare the filling.
The traditional filling is made with a soft cheese like squacquerone or stracchino, nearly impossible to find in the U.S., although ricotta would be fine too. However, I wanted to try it with some mortadella, ground up in the food processor and blended with maascarpone and parmigiano. If mortadella isn’t your thing, or you want a vegetarian version, using a mixture of ricotta and parmigiano.
If you decide to try this filling (and I recommend you do), add more mascarpone if the mixture seems too stiff to spread.
Since I wanted to make these the old-fashioned way, that meant I was determined to roll it out by hand too, instead of using my pasta machine. I soon had to enlist the help of my husband however, because the semolina in the dough made it really resistant to rolling by hand and my wrists and arms were complaining. (It’s also why pasta made with semolina holds up so well in cooking too, instead of turning mushy.) Let gravity help make the rolling easier and let part of the dough hang over an edge of your counter or pasta board, turning the dough a quarter of the way after each roll or two with the rolling pin.
When the dough is thin enough to see your hand through, spread the filling over half of it.
Fold the dough over the filling.
Then using a pastry or pasta crimper, cut strips about 3/4″ across.
Then cut the same width in the opposite direction.
They really do remind me of puffy little Cheezits crackers.
Serve them in a homemade broth.
And sit down to a beautiful bowl of spoja lorda.
Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what’s cooking in Ciao Chow Linda’s kitchen each day (and more)
I first ate a rice salad years ago in Italy, prepared by one of my cousins near Piacenza during a particularly hot summer spell. I have since seen them in many places all over Italy, whether served with a vinegar and oil base as I have here, or a mayonnaise base. Either way they’re delicious and they typically include tuna, hard-boiled eggs, peas and many other vegetables. Many even include chunks of ham, but I kept this one vegetarian. The beauty of this salad is how it adapts to whatever you have on hand in your kitchen, and you can add ingredients in whatever quantities you like. It’s a perfect salad to take to a picnic, and tastes even better the day after you make it. But it makes a fine cold lunch or dinner too, since it contains proteins as well as vegetables. Add a green salad on the side and you’ve got a healthy and delicious meal. I used arborio rice and olive oil, both sent to me by Limone Market. The rice is a brand called “Lucedio,” from a farm in the heart of Italy’s Piedmont region. The grains are husked only when orders are received, to ensure freshness, and they held up well to all the strong ingredients in the salad. After cooking the rice, make sure to let it cool completely before proceeding with the recipe. The oil is from an estate in Sicily called “Bona Furtuna” and is made from a single, organic variety of olive called biancolillo centinara. The oil has a mild flavor, with a slight peppery taste at the end and would work well with any type of salad, seafood or even cake recipes. Both are available at Limone Market’s online shop.
Now for the giveaway: Limone Market has graciously offered to give one of my readers an assortment of its products – arborio rice and olive oil, that I used in this salad, plus lentils and pasta. The organic pasta is made by Monogramo Felicetti with kamut, an ancient grain that originated in the Middle East. It retains its firm texture, and is an excellent source of protein, fiber and vitamins and minerals, including selenium. Plus the shape — chiocciole (snails), is great for soaking up a sauce. I served it in a meat and tomato sauce, but the next time I use it, I plan to serve it in a lighter, olive-oil based sauce, to highlight its nutty, buttery flavor.
The organic lentils are from the Umbria region, from Casa Corneli. Although the package recommends pre-soaking them, I found this step totally unnecessary, since they have very thin skins. I used them in a salad and they retained their shape perfectly. They’d be great in a soup or as a warm side dish too.
All you have to do to receive these products is leave a comment telling me your favorite way to enjoy rice. If you’re on Instagram, follow @ciaochowlinda and @limone_market and you’ll get two extra chances to win. The winner will be chosen using a random number generator.
Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what’s cooking in Ciao Chow Linda’s kitchen each day (and more)
Paglia e fieno literally translates to straw and hay in Italian, and it’s not hard to find these “nests” of green and yellow pasta already made in specialty stores or good supermarkets where I live. However, like most things, homemade is best, so if you have the time and inclination, make your own pasta. I made a big batch of both regular egg fettucine and spinach fettuccine on Easter Sunday, which is when we ate this dish. If you want a recipe for making spinach pasta, click here. For plain egg pasta, the fine OO flour from Italy is best, combined with fresh eggs. You can make a well on a board and mix it the old-fashioned way, but these days, I mostly use a food processor and dump the flour and eggs in there, starting with about 1 1/2 cups of flour and two eggs. Add more flour until it forms a ball in the food processor bowl, then remove it and knead it some more, adding a little flour if necessary. When it’s smooth as a baby’s bottom, cover it and let it rest for at least a half hour, then roll it out with a pasta machine, or by hand, and cut it in the fettuccine shape.
The sauce is a classic — and also a waist expander, but if it’s a special occasion, who cares? It’s worth every calorie. Sorry I don’t have any photos while I was making the sauce, but it comes together so fast and we were all so hungry that I failed to snap any photos. You make the sauce while the pasta is boiling in the water– it’s that quick to do. Start by cutting up the prosciutto into bits and cooking it briefly in the butter. Add the cream and peas and let the cream reduce a bit. However don’t let it thicken too much because the parmesan cheese will naturally thicken the sauce. Drain the pasta, but retain a cup or more of the pasta water in case you need to loosen the sauce. Add the drained pasta to the cream, prosciutto and peas and bestow it a healthy amount of freshly ground black pepper. Swirl everything around and if it seems too thick, add some of the pasta water and swirl a bit more. Turn off the heat and add the parmesan cheese, incorporating it into the dish. Serve with additional parmesan grated on top.
Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what’s cooking in Ciao Chow Linda’s kitchen each day (and more)
No, it’s not mealworms, as one of my readers on my Instagram page suggested. They’re passatelli, a specialty from the regions of Le Marche and Emilia Romagna, where my mother is from. They’re considered a pasta, but there’s no flour in the dough — unless you count the bread crumbs. In addition to bread crumbs, they’re made with parmesan cheese and eggs, and they’re typically served in a chicken or beef broth. I used a recipe from Pasta Grannies Cookbook and there’s even a video of one of the grannies making passatelli here. You mix all the ingredients together until you have a stiff dough that you can roll into a ball. I used leftover bread crusts from mostly whole wheat bread, hence the brown color. If you prefer a lighter color, use only the interior of white bread that’s been dried on the counter for a while until it crumbles easily in a food processor. After adding the parmesan cheese and egg, it will be a lighter beige, or pale yellow color.
You then press it through a potato ricer, or passatelli maker. I used to have a wimpy ricer and unfortunately, the metal bent much too easily with a stiff dough. But since buying this new one from Fante’s in Philadelphia (they do mail order), it’s not a problem. Alternately, if you have a meat grinder, use that, as one reader of my Instagram page suggested. Still, the dough was so stiff I found it hard to push it through the ricer, until I moved the ricer handles to the edge of my table and used my body weight to press down on it. I kept a plate on the chair below to catch the passatelli as they came out.
I ended up with this amount, perfect for two people.
Drop them into gently simmering chicken broth (if it’s a vigorous boil, they’re likely to disintegrate), and cook only a minute or two, until the passatelli pop up to the surface.
Serve at once, with more grated parmesan cheese on the side. It’s comfort food on steroids, what my husband claims hits him at “the cellular level.”
Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what’s cooking in Ciao Chow Linda’s kitchen each day (and more)
If there’s a holiday or special occasion in my household, ravioli are bound to be on the menu. They’re my husband’s favorite pasta, conjuring childhood memories of helping his mother by pressing a fork into the edges of each pillow of dough to help secure the filling.
But when I thought about making them last week to help my dad usher in his 99th orbit around the sun, I realized I’d never really blogged about the basic ravioli in tomato sauce that is the hands-down favorite in my family. I’m here to correct that now, with this bountiful platter of ricotta and parmesan cheese-filled ravioli. I sometimes deviate slightly and add greens to the traditional cheese filling (spinach, swiss chard or even the wild greens I forage for in the spring and freeze) and I’ve included that in the recipe below. Whether I add the greens or just fill them with the cheese, they disappear from the platter before you can say abbondanza.
Let me show you how I make them and hopefully get you inspired. If you take it in steps and make the sauce ahead of time, it won’t seem so daunting. I usually make a big pot of sauce with meatballs and sausage every couple of months, and freeze enough for four or five meals. It’s easy to pull a container from the freezer and just concentrate on the pasta-making itself. For the basic meatballs and sauce recipe, click here.
The dough can be made a day or two ahead of time too, and stored in the refrigerator in plastic wrap. I used to make it the old-fashioned way, by forming a mound of flour, then making a well, adding the eggs, and kneading it until smooth. But years ago, I started using the food processor to do most of the work, and haven’t looked back since. You still have to knead it a little when you remove it from the food processor, but it’s very little labor compared to doing it all by hand. It does need to rest at least a half hour before you proceed to roll it out and shape it into ravioli.
You can roll it out by hand with a rolling pin if you’re a purist (or a masochist), or you can get one of these hand-cranked pasta machines. I’ve had mine for 50 years (yea, I’m old) and it still works great. I keep it at the shore house for when I’m inspired during the summer.
The rest of the year, I roll out the pasta with the attachment to my KitchenAid mixer, which makes things go a lot quicker.
I have the filling all ready to go though, before starting to roll the pasta. Make sure to drain the ricotta a few hours or overnight. I have used cheesecloth, or even coffee filters to hold the ricotta, with weights on the top. You’d be surprised at how much water comes out. And I always buy the full-fat ricotta cheese. Don’t skimp on the calories here please. The filling in the photo contains wild greens, but as I said, you can omit the greens and just go with the cheeses.
Here’s another nifty tool that I started using a few years ago. It makes much more uniform ravioli, plus you won’t be likely to have ravioli with too much dough around the edges, as you might if you formed them by hand. But this too, is totally unnecessary, and in some ways, the hand-formed ones have a certain nostalgic charm, bringing back more vivid memories from my childhood, as I watched my mother shape them at the kitchen table.
Here you can see what to do when you make the ravioli using the form. I generally spray the form first with PAM, or brush lightly with oil. Then you place a sheet of the dough over the form, add a spoonful of the filling, wet the edges of the dough with water, and place a second sheet of pasta over the filling.
Press down carefully, starting from the center, to eliminate any air bubbles. Cut off the excess dough from the edges, then flip it out, and cut between each raviolo.
You’ll have perfect, uniform ravioli this way.
Alternately, if you don’t have the ravioli form, place a sheet of dough directly on your counter or board, add dollops of filling, and moisten between the filling with a brush of water, before adding a second sheet of pasta and helping it to adhere.
Then press down gently to eliminate air bubbles, and use a rolling cutter, or a knife, to cut between the individual ravioli.
You don’t really need to make the fork indentations if you’ve sealed between the layers of dough and pressed down properly, but my husband likes this job, and it’s a little more “insurance” to keep the ravioli from bursting open when you cook them in water. By the way, after they come to an initial boil in the water, lower them to a simmer, since a vigorous boil could also cause them to rupture.
With the leftover scraps, I roll out the dough again, but the more you add the leftover scraps together and reroll them, the tougher they get. So I cut them into small “quadretti” to use in soups, where the texture is less important.
I made the ravioli last week to bring to my dad, who lives about an hour away, with his wife. (I also kept a bunch for my husband or there would have been mutiny). My dad was recovering from some dental work and could eat only soft foods, but it was also part of my gift to him to celebrate his birthday. It’s hard to fathom that he was born nearly 100 years ago — the year Warren Harding was inaugurated president of the U.S.; the year Babe Ruth achieved 139 home runs; the year of the first Miss America contest in Atlantic City; and the year that the police in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, issued an edict requiring women to wear skirts at least 4 inches below the knee! Until the pandemic, he was still occasionally playing golf and beating guys much younger than he. I hope I’m as nimble and sharp-witted when (and if) I get to be his age!
I love making pasta, I love maintaining family food traditions, and I love my dad.
I hope you make ravioli for someone you love too.
It’s a win-win for everyone — including you, especially if you give yourself a big serving!
Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what’s cooking in Ciao Chow Linda’s kitchen each day (and more)
1 pound whole milk ricotta cheese, drained overnight if possible
1 cup parmesan cheese
a few sprigs of parsley, finely minced
optional - ¾ cup chopped spinach or wild greens, or broccoli rape, cooked and squeezed tight of liquid
salt, pepper
nutmeg
FOR THE PASTA:
1½- 2 cups flour, adding more as needed
pinch of salt
3 eggs
Instructions
Mix the ingredients for the filling. If using frozen spinach, don't cook it. Let it thaw, then squeeze all the liquid, or as much as possible from the spinach. If using wild greens or broccoli rape, cook in water until tender, then drain, cool, and squeeze out all water possible. Mince and mix with other filling ingredients.
For the pasta, blend everything in a food processor. It's best to start with less flour and add more as you need, since it's much more difficult if you have too much flour and not enough liquid. Blend everything until the dough comes together in a ball. If it's too wet, add more flour. Knead a little more on a floured surface until it's very smooth, like a baby's bottom. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest at least a half hour.
After it has rested, roll it through a pasta machine, starting with the thickest setting and ending up about two settings short of the thinnest setting. Try to roll it out so that you have an evenly long piece of dough that will fit across your ravioli form. If you're not using a ravioli form, just lay out the dough on the counter, drop about a tablespoon of filling, evenly spaced across the dough, then cover with another layer of dough. Spread a little water with your finger, along the edges, to help the sealing. Starting from the middle, press down on the spaces between the ravioli, working out to the edges. Using a pasta/pastry crimper (or a knife if you don't have one), crimp the dough between the filling, then separate the ravioli, and use a fork to crimp along the edges, ensuring the ravioli don't open when boiled.
When cooking in the boiling water, lower the temperature so that the ravioli just come to a low simmer, or low boil. If they boil too vigorously, you risk bursting the ravioli.
OK, now if this pasta dish has you drooling, let me tell you it’s really easy to make and so delicious you’ll be eating seconds and thirds and fending off marriage proposals from anyone who tries it. Of course, that assumes you make your own pappardelle, following the instructions here. But if you don’t have the time or inclination to make your own pasta and instead buy a good quality pappardelle, and serve this ragù as the accompaniment, you’re still likely to have suitors filling up your dance card after they fill their stomachs.
It all starts with that beef stew I recently posted. I asked you to put some aside in the freezer for a reason (before adding the peas and carrots.)
When you defrost it, add a 1/2 can of Italian cherry tomatoes with the juices. It’s not the same with fresh cherry tomatoes, so make sure you buy the canned ones. If it’s hard to find canned cherry tomatoes where you live, you can buy them online at many places, including here. By the way, I have no financial interest in this brand or any other, so choose whatever brand you like.
After you’ve added the tomatoes, some wine, chestnuts and a little seasoning, let everything simmer for another 1/2 hour to 45 minutes to blend the flavors. You’ll get a thick and flavorful ragù that is just begging for some pasta to keep it company.
I was lucky to find fresh chestnuts from Italy in the produce section at my local grocery store. You’ll see plenty of sealed bags of chestnuts on the shelves that are already peeled and cooked, but they come from China, and I’m leery of the quality control, so I always seek out the Italian ones. The fresh ones are not that hard to cook and clean. Just cut a slit or make a cross cut in each chestnut; place them in a pan with cold water; let it come to a boil; boil for two or three minutes, then drain the water and roast the chestnuts in a 425 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes. They should be fully cooked by then. It’s easier to peel them when they’re hot, and some of the skins will peel off easily. Others are a little more resistant, but for this recipe it doesn’t matter if the chestnuts come off in one piece. You’ll be breaking them up to put in the sauce anyway. (But munch a few with a good glass of wine while you’re peeling them too!)
Get the pasta water boiling (“Butta la pasta,” as we say in Italian) and add the pappardelle, then toss the pasta with the sauce.
My mouth is watering just looking at this dish. By the way, you can freeze any of those chestnuts if you’ve cooked more than you need for this recipe. With chestnut season so short, you’ll be glad you did. As the dish below says, take your photo first, then dig in.
Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what’s cooking in Ciao Chow Linda’s kitchen each day (and more)
2 cups leftover beef stew (without carrots or peas or potatoes - just the meat and the sauce)
1 cup canned cherry tomatoes with the juice (1/2 of a 14 oz. can)
½ cup red wine
1 teaspoon of finely minced fresh rosemary
1 cup cooked chestnuts, broken into pieces
pappardelle (about 1 lb.)
Instructions
Take the leftover beef stew, and cut, or shred the chunks of beef into small pieces.
Place the beef in a saucepan with the canned cherry tomatoes, the wine, the chestnuts and the rosemary and let it all simmer for about ½ hour to 45 minutes.
Boil the pasta until it is cooked and toss gently with the sauce.
Fazzoletti (the Italian word for handkerchiefs) is a pasta I’ve been wanting to make for a long time, after eating it years ago at Le Virtù, a favorite Philadelphia restaurant. I finally got in the fazzoletti-making mode a couple of weeks ago and decided to channel fall flavors, with sausage and mushrooms in the sauce. But to kick it up a further notch, I added saffron to the dough. Saffron is expensive here in the states, but a little goes a long way. It’s a lot less expensive in Italy, and it’s much fresher if you buy it near the source (Abruzzo is famous for its saffron from Navelli). So whenever I’m in Italy, I buy saffron, whether in a pretty little ceramic container, as I bought in Santo Stefano di Sessanio, or in paper packages, that you can find in any supermarket in the country. One of my very favorite ways to use it is in the classic risotto alla Milanese, a recipe I wrote about here.
The dough is made with OO flour, the gold standard when making pasta, with its fine, soft grain and high gluten content. I added two of the small glassine envelopes of saffron to the dough, after dissolving it in a tablespoon of warm water. And yes, you can taste the saffron in the pasta, although it is subtle. Dump everything into a food processor, leaving some of the flour aside because when you’re making an egg/flour pasta, it’s much easier to add more flour to a wet mixture than add more eggs to a dry pasta mixture. Feel free to mix it on the countertop, but you’ll need a lot more muscle. Even with the food processor, take it out and knead it on the counter, adding more flour if it’s too sticky, and kneading it until it’s as soft as a baby’s bottom. Cover it and set aside for at least a half hour, which gives the gluten time to relax and do its thing. It’ll be much easier to work with as a result.
This is the amount of pasta I made using the recipe below. As you can see, I made about a dozen fazzoletti, that each measured 4″ x 4″, plus a lot of pappardelle that I plan to use in a separate recipe. Of course, you can always buy packaged pasta, or even fresh pasta in the refrigerated section, but you’ll have a hard time finding fazzoletti pasta, and there’s nothing quite so delicious as home made. I had a few scraps left over and cut them into thin spaghetti that I’ll most likely use in chicken soup.
The sauce comes together quite quickly, with some olive oil, herbs, sausage, shallots and mushrooms, all cooked in one pot.
Lift the cooked fazzoletti from the boiling water directly into the sauce, letting some of the water come along with it. Stir and mix everything together gently so you don’t rip the pasta. Add more of the pasta water, if needed.
Serve on a large platter, sprinkled with a drizzle of olive oil, some parmesan cheese and minced parsley.
Wait till you bite into this toothsome, yet silky pasta with these complementary flavors. If you’re like me, you’ll have a hard time stopping at one bowl.
Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what’s cooking in Ciao Chow Linda’s kitchen each day (and more)
Aren’t they cute? I was enchanted by this shape of pasta and learned to make it following a video by Rosetta Costantino on her excellent Instagram page. They’re called foglie d’ulivo (olive leaves). This pasta shape is widely known across Italy, but originally is from the Apulia region. It’s made similarly to orecchiette, another specialty of Apulia, but instead of forming round little “ears,” the leaf-like shape requires a different technique.
You can make this with plain white or whole wheat flour, but I added spinach to the dough to attain the bright green color, mimicking actual leaves. After making the dough, (and letting it rest at least a half hour), roll it out into snake-like shapes, then cut into small pieces, which you then roll into smaller “logs” that are slightly more lumpy in the center.
Here is a step by step demonstration of me shaping the pasta leaves.
It takes a little practice, but after a few minutes of trying, you’ll be an expert and these adorable little leaves will be the beautiful result of your labor.
I served them in two different ways – with a browned butter sauce and pine nuts, plus a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.
Another time I tossed them with a summer salsa verde that was featured in Food 52 and includes mint, parsley, basil and capers. We liked it, but thought we might like the salsa better over fish or vegetables.
We much preferred the browned butter/pine nut sauce over this pasta, or a traditional basil pesto. You might also like it with a red sauce, but I would keep it light and use fresh tomatoes (maybe even small cherry tomatoes) so the color and shape of the green leaves don’t disappear in the sauce.
If you’ve never made pasta at home before, foglie d’ulivo may seem a bit daunting. Want to increase your knowledge of making pasta, with a really comprehensive guide to everything pasta – from the ingredients to the techniques? It’s an online cooking school run by two sisters in Rome, Benedetta and Valeria, who started their company, Local Aromas, to teach people about Italian food. Knowledgeable, enthusiastic and passionate about Italy and its food, they conduct food tours in Rome in addition to their online slate of classes.
They started with courses on pasta and gnocchi but plan to expand in the future to include other foods and wines too. In their classes, you’ll learn why certain flours are used for certain pastas, how to make the dough and shape it to specific types of pasta, from farfalle to fettuccine and much more. Especially during this pandemic, if you can’t get to Italy and are looking for a great way to learn a new skill, sign up for a class at Local Aromas.
Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what’s cooking in Ciao Chow Linda’s kitchen each day (and more)
Spinach Foglie D'Ulivo with Browned Butter Pine Nut Sauce
Author: Ciao Chow Linda
Serves: 4 servings
Ingredients
FOR THE PASTA:
1 10-ounce box frozen spinach, thawed
2 cups 00 flour
2 eggs
pinch of salt
FOR THE SAUCE:
½ cup unsalted butter
¼ cup pine nuts, toasted
parmesan cheese, to taste
Instructions
FOR THE PASTA:
Drain the spinach thoroughly, squeezing out all the water you can with your hands.
Then press it with paper towels to get out any remaining water.
Place the spinach and the two eggs into the food processor to break down the spinach.
Start adding the flour.
You may need as little as a cup and a quarter of flour.
It's easy to add more flour later, but much harder to work the dough if you place too much flour into the food processor.
Add just enough flour and process until the dough comes together into a ball.
It will be sticky.
Place the dough onto a wooden work surface, add more flour until the stickiness disappears and the dough seems more "homogenized" and softer.
Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a bowl and let it sit for at least ½ hour.
To make the foglie, take a piece of the dough and roll it out to a snake-like shape, about ½ inch thick and about 6 to 8 inches long.
If you roll it too long, it's harder to handle.
Cut off small bits of the snake-like roll.
Roll the small bit so it is a bit thinner on the ends than in the middle,
Holding one part of the dough with one hand, use a knife or spatula in the other hand and press down on the dough, sliding the knife or spatula along the dough.
Shape with your fingers to make the ends more like a "point" of a leaf if you like.
Cook the pasta in abundant salted water.
If you let the pasta dry overnight, it will take longer to cook, maybe as long as 15 minutes, depending on the thickness.
Meanwhile, take the butter and place it in a saucepan.
Cook it on medium heat until it starts to turn tan.
It can burn easily, so be careful not to let it get to that point.
Add the toasted pine nuts, then the drained pasta and toss everything together.
Place in a serving bowl, then sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
They started with courses on pasta and gnocchi but plan to expand in the future to include other foods and wines too. In their classes, you’ll learn why certain flours are used for certain pastas, how to make the dough and shape it to specific types of pasta, from farfalle to fettuccine and much more. Especially during this pandemic, if you can’t get to Italy and are looking for a great way to learn a new skill, sign up for a class at