Recipe of the Week: Ravioli with Borage and Ricotta cheese

Ravioli are always present on a Ligurian table for the family's most important gathering of the year: the Christmas meal. Unlike other versions of this dish, Ligurian ravioli are not meat filled, since the regional cooking, home to the Mediterranean diet, relies mainly on fresh vegetables, herbs and fish and on very little meat. Western Liguria ravioli are mostly prepared with borage, an annual Mediterranean plant, whose flavor is similar to that of cucumber. The tender leaves are boiled and used to prepare salads, quiches, soups or as a filling for ravioli instead of spinach. Borage's flowers are also used for cooking or as a herbal tea.

Ingredients:

• 3 Eggs
• 300 grams of White wheat all-purpose flour
• 250 grams of Ricotta
• 600 grams of borage 
• 60 grams of Butter
• 18 grams of Sage
• 1 dash of Nutmeg
• 2 pinches of Table salt

Directions:

1. Prepare the filling: put together the borage  leaves boiled, drained and finely chopped, ricotta cheese, 80 grams of parmesan cheese, a grating of nutmeg and a pinch of salt; mix well, make small balls and put them in a large pot.

2. Prepare the dough: put the flour on a surface with the eggs in the middle, mix the eggs with the flour, and continue with your hands to knead until the mixture is homogeneous (it will take around 10 minutes); make a ball and place on floured surface to rest covered with a cloth for about 20 minutes.

3. Prepare the ravioli: take a third of the dough, make it a ball and then roll it into a sheet you'll fill only half. Lay the balls of the filling in regular rows on one half of this sheet, with a gap between them of about one centimeter. Then fold the empty half on top, letting the air out starting to press with your fingers from the outside. When the air is out, cut with notched wheel into ravioli; place them next to each other in a floured worksurface; proceed in the same way from step 3 depending on availability of the ingredients.

4. Put the butter with the sage in a large frying pan and melt it together with a pinch of salt; cook the ravioli in plenty of salted water for 3-4 minutes. Drain, add them to the butter and sage and add parmesan. Serve warm.

Buon Appetito!