Winter-Herb-Garden "Malfatti"

Saturday January 12

Actually, freehand ravioli; malfatti ("ill-made") are fillings without pasta dough. These could be called brutti ma buoni ("ugly but good"), except those are cookies.

We made a batch of pasta dough with a TBSP pf basil oil, and did the usual: let it rest, cut it in four, rolled each out to a narrow strip (no. 5 on the machine). But we really didn't want the waste of little ravioli. We wanted lotsa filling, so we went free-style.
The herbaceous filling was 1 cup and a half (or so) of whole-milk ricotta, 3/4 cup of grated pecorino romano, 1 egg yolk, and ca. 2 Tbsp. each of fresh parsley and fresh oregano, chopped fine.

We then cut the pasta sheets into ca. 3-inch squares (or as close as you can get) and put the filling in middle; folded over into triangles (more or less) and sealed edges with water.
After sliding them into boiling water, we let them boil ca. 10 mins. or until an edge was al dente.

In the meantime, we simmered a can of crushed tomatoes (we started with diced, but it was a bad idea, since this was from the Tough Tomato Co., a store brand we'll never buy again) with a handful of chopped fresh sage. The ideal was the Modena sauce we use for pork.

We carefully removed the wildly orginal ravioli from water using two slotted spoons; arranged on heated plates, and topped with sauce.

Them boys is tasty.