Overflown with spinach or trying to have a green bite? Check out this Italian Malfatti recipe and that will have the best side!

Malfatti hasn’t got anything to do with fatties but it’s solely an Italian word for the “Badly made” gnocchi that the Malfatti is.

The word gnocchi is probably derived from the word of “nocchio” or “nocca” which are Italian words for “knot in wood” or “knuckle” respectively. None of them has a lot to do with the potato filled floury dough that is cooked in boiling water, except maybe that gnocchi could resemble both of them if we are blessed with a strong enough imagination.

Gnocchi is popular in Italy since Roman times, in their most basic water and flour form with or without eggs. Although, nowadays potatoes seem to be the most popular filling for gnocchi, ricotta cheese has been present in Italy since the Bronze Age, so ricotta gnocchi isn’t really the newest kid around the block.

In fact, even Spinach arrived sooner to the Mediterranean, in around the 10^th century contrasted with the potato fairly late introduction to the old world, five hundred years later.

Since then, all the ingredients had some time to take root in the Italian cuisine and became part of their national identity in the process.

Malfatti is a roughly made ricotta spinach gnocchi that, despite its unassuming appearance, is capable to conquer anyone’s heart after the first bite.

While malfatti is frequently paired with tomato sauce and served as a dish if we care not for the Italian traditions of eating pasta as an appetizer on its own, we can accompany malfatti on the side of our protein filled dishes too.

Choose either way, once we embrace the wriggling imperfections of the green fuzziness, embedded in starchy protein and fat filled dumplings, we can almost forget that we are having something green.

Ingredients

Malfatti

250g Ricotta (drain overnight if wet)
300g Spinach (roughly cut)
1 medium / 50g Egg
½ cup / 70g Plain flour
2½ oz / 100g Parmesan
1 teaspoon / 5g Salt
1 pinch Nutmeg (grated) (optional)
1 Lemon zest (optional)

Sauce

2 tablespoon / 30ml Olive oil
3 cloves / 9g Garlic
28 oz / 800g Tomato puree or peeled tomatoes
1 teaspoon / 3g Salt to taste
1 teaspoon / 1g Black pepper to taste
2 teaspoon / 3g Oregano

How to make Malfatti

Preparation

Ricotta

Ricotta in the US tend to be a bit on the wet side. Drain the ricotta overnight in the fridge or use a cheesecloth to squeeze out most of the moisture.

Spinach

Blanching

There are two methods to prepare the spinach for ricotta. The first one is simply blanching it which means placing the spinach leaves into boiling water for about a minute or two.
Once the leaves are wilted and considerably reduced in size, they need to be cooled down under cold running water or in icy water.

Stir-frying

The other method consists of sautéing (stir-frying) a bit of garlic on hot oil.
Add the spinach leaves and sauté until the leaves are wilted.

Let the leaves cool down and squeeze out the remaining liquid from the leaves.

Assembly

Mix the drained ricotta, eggs, Parmesan cheese, salt, any optional ingredients and the squeezed spinach together.
With two wet spoon measure out and form the desired sized malfatti.
Put a batch of malfatti into boiling water.
Once the malfatti comes up the surface, take them out. Let them drip.

Sauce

Sauté (stir-fry) a bit of garlic on hot oil until it gets a brownish color, about a minute.
Pour in the tomato puree or peeled tomatoes.
Cook on low to medium heat until the puree reduced by a third or the peeled tomatoes come apart completely. Add salt, black pepper and oregano to taste. Let it cool a bit then serve tomato sauce with malfatti.