Weed Your Garden and Make Ravioli Gnudi with Nettles Recipe

Nettle Ravioli Gnudi with a Side of Smashed Cooked Cauliflower

Spring is here at last in full form and we all breath a sigh of collective relief. Ones attention turns toward activities that will take us outdoors after our winters nap and we fell the sun on our face and the fresh air fills our lungs. We can finally get our hands into the dirt and begin to plant that garden we've been thinking about all winter. We begin to eat a lighter fare after all of those hearty dishes of comfort that we rely upon to get us through times of cold and longing for the delicacies of summer. Naturally we dip back into those comfort foods at will, especially in the changeling seasons of spring and autumn before the season steadies on with, full on, hot or cold. However let us forage forward with a dish that is somewhere in between. 

A popular dish from the Tuscan region of Italy is called ravioli gnudi or naked ravioli. 

Adam and Eve "gnudi" - Mural Painting in the village of Usseaux

That's right folks, this is the ever popular spinach and ricotta filling rolled into balls and left without its pasta cloak on, then rolled in a bit of flour coating and lightly boiled. Once they have sunk to the bottom of the pan and then floated to the top, they are gently simmered for a short time. They are lifted out and drained of water and tossed into to your favorite sauce, and voila`, springtime is served up.

Stinging Nettles in the wild

Naturally, I took a turn and headed for the garden and after pulling a copious amount of stinging nettles from between my currant and raspberry canes, I became inspired to swap out the nettles for the spinach and use rice instead of wheat flour to make them suitable for celiacs or gluten intolerant folks. The way these are boiled by gently dropping them into the water, where they promptly sink, and then waiting for them to come bobbing back up to the surface and simmer just ever so slightly, is reminiscent to me of our beloved northern gnocchi. It's the same cooking method and determination for doneness. For this subtly flavored wild green, that loses its ferocious sting once it is cooked, I used a simple butter, walnut and chicken stock combination to showcase and elevate the nettle flavor as well as add the Piemontese favored walnut for added texture. It all worked very well I think.  
Italians are very fond of stinging nettles or "ortiche" as they are called in Italian and are liberally used in soups, tea, pasta, crepes and any  filling that would use spinach. They are purported to have a fair amount of health benefits, such as helping to reduce hypertension, and asthma,  relieve arthritis and menopause, encourage milk production in lactating women, break down kidney stones, and help with diabetes, just to name a few. Maybe it does or doesn't do these things, but they are tasty and a change from your regular spinach consumption. 
Please note.
While I do recommend that you give these a try when you find some nettles that haven't gotten too old or gone to seed, if possible. The younger plants flavor is mild like spinach, but do be forewarned, they sting like the dickens, so wear protective gloves and maybe even long sleeves when picking them and kitchen gloves when cleaning them. *When cleaning them, give them a thorough water rinse, using a good slug of vinegar if you want to make sure and get them thoroughly clean, and don't forget to wear your kitchen glove.  Drain and sauté them in a tablespoon or two of olive oil or butter till they wilt , adding a bit of water so that they cooked through. Squeeze them dry before chopping and adding them to the ricotta. If you aren't able to find any nettles or aren't so adventuresome, then by all means, replace the nettles with an equal amount of spinach.

There are a number of recipes you can find online, but I modified and put my own spin on Barbara Elisi's recipe that you will find here.  

Stinging Nettle and Ricotta Ravioli Gnudi

Ingredients:

250 g (9 oz) ricotta (drained by setting on a sieve or strainer)

250 g (9 oz) fresh nettles (*cleaned, see note above, cooked, drained, squeezed dry and chopped)

1 egg, medium

100 g / 1/2 generous cup, Parmesan cheese, grated

1 or 2 T of rice flour ( if the dough looks too soft add a tablespoon or two)

1-2 T  olive oil or butter to sauté the greens

Rice flour ( for rolling the formed balls in before simmering in water)

Directions:

Wear gloves to pick and clean the nettles
Weed your garden or find a patch of nettles and pick a goodly amount of nettles to bring home and clean. 

• Set the ricotta in a strainer to drain the water off. 
• Strip the leaves from the stalks, discarding the stalks and place in a bowl and cover with fresh water and swish around letting set to let debris fall to the bottom of the bowl. 
• Discard and repeat the process till the greens are clean, as mentioned above. Drain the greens of water.
• Sauté in a small amount of oil or butter till wilted and cooked.
• Squeeze dry (gloves not really necessary now)
• Chop the greens small.

Once all the ingredients are ready,

• Whisk the egg lightly in a medium bowl and add the ricotta and nettles and mix lightly just to combine.
• Add rice flour if you find the batter too soft to manage.
• Fill a roomy pasta sized cooking pot full of salted water to a boil.
• Using a teaspoon or your hands and drop small amounts of your mixture onto a rice floured surface or drop rounded  nettle ricotta balls into a small bowl with rice flour and roll around to shape into balls and coat with the flour. 
• Set the coated balls aside until your water is boiling and your sauce is ready to go.
• Roll the batter spoonfuls into the flour and then 
• Drop into the boiling water. 
• When the gnudi emerge on the surface of the water, boil a further 1 minute or so and
• Gently drain with a skimmer. 

Combine with Walnut Butter Sauce sauce and serve.

Butter Walnut sauce: 

100g butter (sometimes I use less butter and add a bit of chicken or veggie stock to lighten it up )

200 g walnut, rough chopped medium
Melt your butter and add you r chopped walnuts and cook lightly till bubbly.
Add your hot cooked ravioli gnudi.

Mix to coat and serve hot with a generous grating of Parmesan on top.

Ricottan and Nettles mixed

All rolled in rice flour and waiting to be boiked

Ready to go into the sauce

Voila' Nettle Ravioli gnudi is served

Ravioli Gnudi- A Spring Time Delight

Ravioli gnudi

The signs of spring are everywhere, in the lengthening of the day, the snow piles slowly but surely shrinking in spite of the best efforts of mother nature to keep them topped up. I have spoken before about how we only have to go two turns down our mountain road and we find a dramatic change in the advancement of spring. We're still up there in the snow zone, but we are on the teetering edge od full on winter and full on spring. It's an interesting place to live. The primula are starting to finally poke their heads up wherever the snow has begun to retreat in earnest. The market is full of spinach and dandelion greens and soon there will be all manner of various greens gathered and foraged to perk up the taste buds from our sturdy cabbage and potato winter fare. 

Springtime beginning to arrive in Val Chisone

I had elaborate plans to share a couple of pizza recipes, but have failed to get the recipes down on paper so I will share the next best thing that I have recently made. That would be the ravioli gnudi, or nude ravioli. A peculiar name for most of us, but what it is referring to is that the spinach ricotta mixture is oftentimes what you find in many a filled pasta and this time there is no pasta. There is flour used in the mix and then later rolled in the flour to help hold it all together, but there is no firm pasta covering. The emperor has no clothes! Ok not exactly, but I think you get the drift. 

Ravioli gnudi is the name given to them by the Tuscans, from whence I think they originated, or at least became most well known from. Up here in the north, we are fond of our gnocchi and so these are really just a variation on a gnocchi for us. What ever you want to call them, we just mainly call them delicious, and please don't call me late for dinner.

These really are easy enough, but my main tip would be to make sure that you have a dough ball that will stay together. My first attempt a few years ago almost made me give up on them as I was gingerly handling them as I wanted to make sure they would be tender and fluffy. Well, what I got was a pot full of spinach ricotta water. They disintegrated in the boiling process. I salvaged them best I could, but was sorely disappointed. Next time I sacrificed light and fluffy for sturdy and durable and eventually came upon a nice middle of the road, light and sturdy dough ball that didn't mind simmering and then being sloshed around in a pan with a bit of sage butter and a light coating of marinara sauce upon occasion. The spinach is plentiful right now, so it's a great time to give these a go and let me know what you think. I have a feeling they may be something you will enjoy again and again once you get the hang of them. 

Ravioli Gnudi

about 6 servings (depending if you serve more courses)

Ingredients:

350 g (12 oz) fresh spinach, cooked in minimum of water

350g (12 oz or about 1 1/2 c) ricotta

4 T parmesan cheese, grated (or more if you like)

¼ tsp fresh ground nutmeg

3 eggs, medium, if large I would use 2 whole and 1 yolk

125 g (about 1 ¼ c) flour all purpose,

(divide into 5 T to add to the dough and the rest to roll the balls in

pinch or two salt after adding the Parmesan if needed

Method:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil while you prepare the dumplings/gnocchi/ravioli.

Once you have cooked the spinach and allowed it too cool.

Squeeze very dry and chopped medium fine.

Mix the spinach well with the ricotta.

Add the parmesan and nutmeg and a pinch of salt

Add eggs and mix well.

Sprinkle the 5 Tb of flour in, mixing lightly. Add a bit more flour if it doesn;t seem to be holding together.

It will be a soft sticky mix.

Pour the flour into a flat pan

Flour your hands

Drop teaspoons of dough int the flour, roll around and then lightly make the balls coating so they hold together when you simmer them. I tried for thumbnail sized but they were a bit bigger than that.

You don't want them too large so they cook easily.

Once you have all the balls prepared drop them into, a couple at a time, the rolling boil. You may need to do two batches depending on the size of your pot. They will sink like gnocchi and the boil will stop. Gently stir them and bring them back toa boil, but lower the heat as soon they they start to boil, so they simmer gently and don't boil so hard that they fall apart. It should take about 5-6 minutes, depending on the size of the balls.

Once done I put them in a large pan with a little melted butter and fresh sage and gently shook the pan, to coat. Sprinkled parmesan on top and served them with a side of marinara sauce.

I made 2/3  of the batch as I was a fraud we would eat them all in one sitting. We did!

Grandma Denzio's Ravioli - or Piemontese Agnolotti

Piemontese Agnolotti or Grandma Denzio's ravioli

No, Victoria Argenta Denzio wasn't my grandmother, although I wouldn't have minded. She was my sister-in-law, Nancy's maternal grandmother and quite a quite a character as I remember her. You see, influences come in many different forms and sometimes it takes the lens of time to bring back all the different influences that make us who we are. To quote a present day American presidential candidate, "It takes a village to raise a child..." or something like that. I must say that I can draw on a variety of influences that have stimulated my interest and imagination when it comes to food as a child. All the different influences have also stimulated the desire to travel and experience food in authentic settings as well and of course, that means meeting the people that make the magic in the kitchen. But that is some other tales for another time. Back to southern Illinois where I grew up and where these ravioli came into my memory as the legendary family treasure that they are.

Ravioli or agnolotti as they are called in Piedmonte with tagliatelle pasta

Our normal family meals were American farm fare, simple and tasty as my mother took great pride in her cooking and it showed. My father was her most enthusiastic fan of her accomplished standards but he wasn't her only admirer. When we found ourselves in a new community with different foods on offer my Mom was game to try some of these new tastes. I still remember the first time we had spaghetti and red sauce and chop suey, which isn't Chinese at all but it was new and exciting. It was a big deal and just the beginning of Mom venturing out into the culinary world of other ethnic foods and venturing away from the familiar. 

Ravioli with fresh artichokes

When we came to to live in Herrin, Illinois I was pretty young and 2 of my older brothers were already in high school. Somewhere along the way my brother, Jim started dating Nancy, fell madly in love with her and eventually they married after college graduation. Nancy brought along a new set of family traditions that were exotic and intriguing. Nancy's mothers side of her family were Italians who had settled in southern Illinois along with a quite a few others from Chicago and the east coast as Italian immigrants found their way out of the original points of landing in America. Going to Nancy's family for a big extended family meal was a new adventure. There were super garlic salameats (which I have a sneaking suspicion is a new world pronunciation of salame) with crusty rolls that you could only get from Luigi's market and almonds covered in a hard white coating in little cups or bags tied up at their wedding reception. The even had wine with their meals, wow. My family was the straight and narrow tea totalers. Nothing wrong with that, but it was new unexplored territory in this new part of my family that my brother had married into. It was, however, Grandma Denzio's ravioli that I remember so clearly that Nancy spoke of with such reverence and affection. I was drawn in to this enticing unfamiliar world. Nancy's grandparents lived nearby and came on more than one occasion to a meal with all of us together. I was completely mesmerized by Nicolo and Victoria or Nic and Vic, as they were affectionately called. I remember Nic showing us his little garden plot that he had put in for Nancy's parents as well as his own that he lovingly tended. My favorite tale involved him returning from a visit to homeland Rome, Italy with seeds and vines of varieties of tomatoes and other veggies that he couldn't access in Southern Illinois, sewn into the lining of his trousers and jacket pockets. Sometimes in the telling of stories and general conversation Nic and Vic would get quite animated and drop into rapid fire Italian, that I could only guess at what they were discussing so passionately. I have a feeling some of it might be some of the things that you first learn when you arrive in a different country and aren't suppose to say, but don't know that yet. I don't know, but it was lively, a bit forbidden. They were colorful and interesting and I loved it. I just knew that making Victoria's ravioli was something magical that mere mortals like myself and non Italian to boot, could never master. I was in awe of this mysterious food, ravioli. It took me all these years to get around to ask for the recipe again. Actually, I think I have it somewhere, but I think it is packed away with a lot of other bits of other lifetimes back in the states. When my brother graduated with his masters degree, Nancy held a little dinner party in celebration of Jim's accomplishment for my parents, my youngest brother and I along with the student housing neighbors, Thor and Nancy, with whom they remain friends with to this day, some 30+? years later. It was quite a day, because Nancy was making her grandmother's legendary ravioli. Nancy had learned by making them along side her grandmother, Victoria. We all pitched in that day and helped. It was great fun, and I've never forgotten it, but for some odd reason most of my adult life I seemed to have thought that I couldn't' make ravioli. That you had to have a special family recipe and, you had to have an Italian gene to really be able to make them. Funny how we get things into our heads and it takes forever to sometimes even realize that it's even there. 

Ravioli close up

Funnily enough, I even use to make fresh pasta regularly at one of the restaurants that I worked at, but we didn't really take on filled pasta, though. Pity that. It wasn't until I came to Italy to live that some of these myths started to be dispelled. I don't have an Italian gene, but I do have a natural interest and I have learned a trick or two while I have been here and the mystery of making pasta and filled pasta isn't so mysterious as it once was and it isn't sooo time consuming either, once you get the hang of it. My mother in law even came over to have me help her with making ravioli dough a few years back and when I made Grandma Denzio's this past week, my in laws were full of praise. The first thing out Fabrizio's mouth was, these are just like my Grandmother use to make. My in laws said they same. High praise, high praise indeed. You see too these are special for another reason too, Grandma Denzio and her family were originally from Torino, so this is a truly authentic Piemontese family recipe. The local Piemontese family that I married into completely agreed. How interesting that all these years later I find myself in the heart of the Torino province and Piemonte. Who would have thought. If you've got some time and want to make a lot for a big family or crowd, then this special recipe is for you. You may want to enlist some help to make it go a bit quicker, or make a few family memories of your own. I've never forgotten that ravioli making day with Nancy, my mother and brother also. Nancy made it special. Her willingness to share of herself and her family makes it just one of many reasons that she is such a great sister in law. She has been my sister a lot longer than she hasn't. So this post is dedicated to my sister Nancy with all my love from all the years of friendship and generosity of spirit she has brought to my family. Thanks Nancy, I love you very much and thank you for sharing your grandmother and her legendary ravioli recipe with me.
I'm now sharing it with all of you.
Please make some memories too.

Nancy and Marla

New Years Eve 2005

~An Apples and Thyme  Event~

This my entry for April's 2008 Apples and Thyme event that Jeni of Passionate Palate and Inge of Vanielje Kitchen, started. If you want more information please click here.

A pan of our  hand made ravioli Thanks for the inspiration Grandma Denzio

This recipe makes a lot! It will easily feed 10 people or more. I forgot to buy the veal and made it only with the beef and pork and I think the veal would give that little added dimension to the flavor. So the full recipe would make quite a bit more and you might run out of past before you run out of filling. When making pasta dough, you sometimes need to adjust the recipe a bit for your conditions and needs.

Grandma Denzio's Ravioli

For the Filling:

• 1 lb of veal
• 1 lb beef steak
• 1 lb pork steak
• 1/2 c uncooked plain rice
• 1 large can of spinach
• 3-4 eggs
• 1/2 c hard grating cheese, like Romano, I used Grana Padano
• S&P, butter , oil and garlic

Fry the meats all together in frying pan with the oil, butter and garlic.
Saute the rice with half of a small onion.
Cook with water normally and set aside.
Drain spinach and fry with a little butter and garlic
(I used fresh spinach and used enough to have a couple of big handfuls when squeezed dry.)
When the meats are done, cool enough to handle.
(I had more like roasts pieces, so I cooked mine all together with herbs and onion, carrot and celery in a pressure cooker, which worked very well with using the food processor. I chopped the meats up and and sauteed them in a small amount of oil before putting them through the meat grinder. I reserved the vegetables and juices for the sauce later)
The meats, spinach, and rice all go through the meat grinder.
(I don't have one, so mine went through the food processor)
Then I added 4 eggs and the grated cheese.
(As I know my family's taste, I added a generous amount of fresh ground noci moscate or nutmeg, which I knew would have been pointed out, if I had omitted it.)
I then adjusted the seasoning with some salt and pepper.
It needs to be a dry, moist and flavorful filling.
I filled a pastry bag with a plain round tip to fill the pasta.

Filling the ravioli

Grandma Denzio's recipe
For the pasta:

4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
2Tb oil
Mix all together and
add 1 c warm water
This will make a soft dough.
Roll out thin placing filling 1/2 apart on dough.
Cover, cut and cook.
Drain and add your favorite sauce.
Traditionally, served with a red meat sauce.
I, of course, tried a little local variation.
You take the meat juices and cooked vegetables and run it through the food mill for a passata. Often it is serve just like that and called Salsa dell' arrosto.
On Fabrizio's urging, I added a bit of the filling that I had left over
with the thickened passata (tomato sauce) from the vegetables and juices,
adjusted seasonings and voila.
It was tasty, simple and used everything up.
These were a big hit with my family.
I hope you enjoy them with yours.

Grandma Denzio's Ravioli in a meat sauce topped with Parmigiana