Homemade day, so I can calmly enter the kitchen and prepare lunch
In the fridge, there’s fresh sheep ricotta, freshly gathered walnuts (I still need to finish) Grana Padano and Pecorino.
Ok! I’m making Ligurian Pansoti… (‘Pansa’ means belly) because you stuff them generously, forming a belly. I omitted the herbs, as the rain didn’t allow me to go to the garden, so I modified the original recipe. In truth, I could have used the freezer supplies
A stuffed pasta I’ve known for a lifetime, which I’ve prepared many times, both for the taste and the shape… I often use wild herbs, but also garden vegetables, borage, ribs, or lamb’s quarters.
Years ago, when I was very young, during the summer school break, I became a babysitter, so with the grandmother of ‘my’ little one, we went to gather wild herbs to make pansoti, ready for when the children came from Turin.
That’s how I got to know them firsthand, us three together between fields and kitchen.
The grandmother shaped them into triangles, and I continued with this characteristic. Naturally, in the kitchen with the little one, we played, and our pansoti never came out the same size. Certainly delicious.
A beautiful summer, except that in two months I gained several pounds. The grandmother taught me many little secrets of Ligurian food, I hadn’t yet chosen to become a cook, but I haven’t lost her advice along the way.
The walnut sauce is a typical regional product, part of the PAT Italian Traditional Food Products. The good traditional food that represents Italy.
- Preparation time: 2 Hours
- Portions: 6
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian Regional
- Energy 855.88 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 45.25 (g) of which sugars 7.28 (g)
- Proteins 24.54 (g)
- Fat 65.36 (g) of which saturated 14.43 (g)of which unsaturated 17.99 (g)
- Fibers 8.38 (g)
- Sodium 2,394.36 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 200 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 3 eggs
- 1 1/10 lbs sheep ricotta
- 3 1/2 oz pecorino
- 2 pinches black pepper
- 1 tbsp salt
- 10 1/2 oz walnuts
- 1 slice stale bread
- 7/8 cup milk
- 3 1/2 oz olive oil
- 1 clove fresh garlic
- 1 3/4 oz pecorino (Or Parmesan)
Tools
- Pasta Maker
- Kneading Board
Steps
Soak the bread in milk, meanwhile, plunge the walnuts in boiling water for five minutes to remove the skin
Squeeze the bread, remove the walnut skins and blend all ingredients.
The walnut sauce is ready! It’s a thick and grainy sauce, some add cream… I prefer it lighter
Knead the flour with the eggs, cover it, and let it rest for about half an hour
Mix all the filling ingredients well
Place in the piping bag
Roll out the pasta and place the filling
Cover with another sheet and press the edges of the triangles with your hands
Cut with a pastry wheel
Finish all the filling
With the scraps, we make pinwheels
Roll out the leftovers and cut them into diamonds
Form pinwheels
Fry the pinwheels in hot oil
Drizzle them with chestnut honey and season with a pinch of cinnamon
Pinwheels and…
Honey
Some Extra Advice
Pansoti can be frozen with due precautions. Place a sheet of parchment paper to separate them. They cook in a few minutes. On this occasion, I seasoned them with walnut sauce, but they are delicious if you add a potato cut into pieces and chopped green beans to the cooking water… All seasoned with good basil pesto.

