Malfatti are a slightly wonky cross between a giant gnocchi and a dumpling (malfatti loosely translates as ‘badly formed’). They’re incredibly fun to make, and as a bonus they are meant to be a bit cockeyed, which means that cooking them involves gaily flinging spoonfuls of mixture at a pot of water, with no painful quenelling in sight. Also, they’re green! I love to make my malfatti with truckloads of parsley (and sometimes basil, pumpkin leaves or dandelion greens too), which renders them verdant and bright, and they look absolutely charming atop a lovely red lake of tomato and chilli sauce. You can also make them up to a week in advance and pop them in the oven just before serving (helloooo, excellent entertaining dish) - they will puff up most pleasingly with a quick roast. These malfatti flew off the menu at my temple of deliciousness/restaurant, and it’s easy to see why: they’re comforting, hearty, and no-one can accuse you of not eating your greens :).

Parsley and ricotta malfatti with tomato chilli sauce

Serves 4 (with a couple of malfatti leftover :))

Ingredients

For the malfatti

3 healthy bunches parsley (or one to two bunches parsley and the remaining quantity made up of basil, pumpkin leaves, dandelion greens, spinach etc - whatever leafy greens you have to hand)

750g ricotta (you want the firmer kind that’s sold in baskets, rather than the smoother variety sold in tubs)

3 pasture-raised eggs

75g semolina flour

150g plain white flour

½ teaspoon nutmeg, or about a third of a whole nutmeg, finely grated

Salt and pepper

Parmesan cheese for grating over the finished dish

For the tomato chilli sauce

500g tomatoes (I usually use cherry tomatoes for this as they will roast faster, and seem to yield a sweeter result, but any size will work)

2 large cloves garlic, skins on

1/2 to 1 teaspoon chilli flakes, or to taste (I find chilli flakes vary quite a bit in their heat intensity, so it is worth understanding this each time you start a new pack)

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Recipe

First, make the tomato chilli sauce. Heat your oven to 220C. Tumble the tomatoes onto a tray, nestle the garlic cloves among them and pour over a few good lugs of olive oil - three to four healthy drizzles from the bottle should do it. Sprinkle over half a teaspoon of salt and the same of pepper.
Rub it all around with your hands so the tomatoes become well coated in the oil and seasoning, enjoying the slippery feel of the oil on the smooth skin of the tomatoes as you do so (this is also an optimal time to give your tomatoes a beautiful blessing, giving your thanks for all the life-giving goodness of the late-summer sun and for the beautiful tomato plants it has nurtured into being for you).
Pop the tray in the oven and roast for 25 to 35 minutes, until the tomatoes are well roasted and starting to turn very dark brown on top. It’s ok to let them go a little black on top too, not fully, but a nice, deep, dark roast is what you’re after. There may be some liquid in your tray - this is good, this is lovely juicy tomato flavour. But if there’s not a heap of liquid, that’s ok too - let your tomatoes be as they wish to be.
Once the tomatoes are nicely roasted, pull them out of the oven, and let them cool for 10-15 mins.
Take the garlic cloves off the tray and set them aside, then use tongs or a slotted spoon to place the tomatoes and their liquid into a blender. Cut the pointy end off your garlic cloves and squeeze them from the opposite end - their now-soft insides will squirt satisfyingly from their cut end, straight into your waiting tomatoes in the blender. You’re now done with the garlic skins, so off they go to your compost.
Add the chilli and blend until the sauce is combined, then taste and check the seasoning, adjusting if necessary. Set aside until required. This sauce also freezes beautifully if you want to make a larger batch to store.
Now, it’s time for the malfatti :). Start by putting a very large pot of water on to boil.
Roughly chop your parsley and place in a blender with 500g of the ricotta (I do this in my Vitamix). Blend together until the mixture is smooth and brilliant green. If it’s having trouble blending you can add more ricotta, but ideally you want at least 100g of ricotta left aside to mix through in step 9. If it’s really struggling to blend, you can add one or more of the eggs to further loosen it.
Pour your gooey green goodness into a bowl, making sure to give the sides of the blender a nice scrape with your spatula to make sure you get all the mixture out. Add the remaining ricotta, and all the rest of the ingredients, and season with salt and pepper. Mix everything together really well with a wooden spoon. Taste the mixture for seasoning - you want it to be reasonably salty as we will be poaching these, so a lot of the salt will leach out into the poaching water.
Take a large spoon and gently drop 90g blobs of batter into your large pot of boiling water. I find the easiest way to do this is to put the bowl of batter on a scale, then spoon out 90g worth at a time. I like my malfatti plump and large, that’s why I use a good old whack of batter, but you can really do them any size, and they don’t even all have to be the same size - just go where your heart takes you. Depending on the size of your pot, you may need to poach in two or more batches (don’t crowd the pot too much, your malfatti need room to dance :)). The mixture will hold up fine, just pop it in the fridge if it’s a very hot day.
Gently poach the malfatti for about 8 minutes - I usually keep cooking them for about 3-4 minutes after they’ve floated, so you can use that as a guide if you’ve made yours a different size. It’s important that the water isn’t boiling too rapidly, a gentle rolling simmer is perfect. They have very little flour to bind them, which means the end result is lovely and soft, but if the water is jostling them around too much they can break up (which is actually not that big of a deal, they will still be delicious, and after all, they’re meant to be badly formed :)).
Tt this point you can do one of two things
1. Heat your roasted tomato and chilli sauce, pour it onto your plates, pop your malfatti on top (I do three to a plate), grate over a healthy rain of parmesan and devour them.
2. Pop your malfatti in the fridge, where they will keep for up to a week. When you’re ready to eat them, pop them on a greased oven tray, drizzle them with a little olive oil, and roast them in a 200C oven for about 10 minutes - to make sure they’re hot all the way through you can pop the tip of a sharp knife into one, hold it there for a few seconds, then pull it out and touch it to your finger. Serve with roasted tomato chilli sauce and parmesan as above.