Ingredients

Servings 6

• 1 lb all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• salt
• 1 lb ground beef
• oil
• onion
• garlic
• rosemary
• red wine
• 4 ½ lb tomatoes
• borage
• escarole
• lamb sweetbread, or veal sweetbread
• pork sausage
• Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
• milk
• lemon

Preparation

1 hour preparation + 5 minutes cooking

Put onto the kitchen table, the flour, an egg, a pinch of salt and gradually add enough water to obtain some very soft dough; at least one glass of water will be necessary.

Work the dough to obtain a smooth and homogeneous consistency, and then cover with a napkin and leave to rest. Prepare the sauce in the Genoese way: in a pan containing the oil, brown the lean beef and when it has colored, add salt, a little onion, a soupçon of garlic and a pinch of rosemary.

Leave to brown for some more minutes and then douse with two fingers of red wine. When the wine has evaporated, add the tomatoes, skinned, seeded, and cut into pieces. If you prefer to use tomato conserve it will be necessary to add sufficient water to almost cover the meat. Leave to simmer for 2 hours minimum, until the meat is well cooked and the sauce has thickened.

The traditional filling is a mixture of a little of the stewed meat used to make the sauce, borage and escarole (no spinach!) in large quantity, sweetbreads, sausage, eggs, Parmesan, some herbs and Ricotta. Remember that in the filling, the vegetables should correspond to about two times the other components. In a pan, put a little chopped onion, a soupçon of garlic and a dribble of oil, sauté a little, then add, first the sausage skinned and chopped up, and afterwards a little bit of sweetbreads (according to taste).

If these are veal sweetbreads they should be previously boiled, if instead they are from baby lamb it is possible to avoid this preliminary cooking. Brown and last of all add the previously cooked vegetables. Season with salt, leave to gain flavor and then chop everything up.

Collect this chopped mixture in a receptacle, add half the stewed meat already chopped up, the egg, Parmesan, and Ricotta and mix everything together thoroughly to perfectly amalgamate all the ingredients. At this point, having followed our instructions, both the filling and the pasta will be ready: proceed, therefore, to the preparation of the ravioli. Divide the pasta into two equal parts to produce two fairly thin sheets.

Lay one of these on the table and, not far apart, line up some pellets of filling; more or less voluminous according to the size you want the ravioli to be. Having done this, cover the garnished sheet with the other one and with the fingers press around the filling to close well.

Then with the the aid of a cutting-wheel cut out the ravioli. A few minutes before serving, toss the ravioli into abundant boiling water, salted as usual, leave to boil for 4-5 minutes, drain well, and dress, in layers, with the meat sauce and abundant Parmesan.