Pansoti al Preboggion con Salsa di Noci Genovese

Ingredients

• For the pasta dough
• 320 g 00 flour
• 3 eggs
• 60 ml dry white wine, replacing 20% of the liquid in place of water
• For the preboggion filling
• 300 g preboggion (wild herb and green mixture), minimum: borage, Swiss chard, pimpinella, wild fennel fronds — up to 14 species
• 150 g prescinseua (Genoese curd cheese), or strained ricotta with a drop of lemon juice
• 1 egg
• 40 g Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated
• For the salsa di noci
• 200 g walnuts, shelled, blanched, skins removed
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tsp fresh marjoram leaves
• 80 g prescinseua (Genoese curd cheese), or strained ricotta with a drop of lemon juice
• 60 ml Ligurian extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra to drizzle raw at plating

Method

1. 1
   Blanch the preboggion in well-salted boiling water until tender. Drain, refresh in cold water, then squeeze with both hands until entirely dry. Chop finely. Combine with the prescinseua, the egg, and the Parmigiano. The mixture must hold its shape when pressed: if slack, it will burst the pasta.
2. 2
   Make the pasta dough: heap the flour, make a well, add the eggs and the white wine. Work to a smooth, firm dough. Rest, wrapped, until supple and elastic when stretched.
3. 3
   Roll the dough thinly. Cut into squares of approximately 7 cm. Place a generous mound of filling at the centre — the belly of filling must be full, not a thin layer. Fold into a triangle, press the edges firmly to seal, ensuring no air pocket around the filling. The pansoti must be fat and rounded, not pressed flat.
4. 4
   Prepare the salsa di noci: pound the blanched, skinned walnuts in a mortar with the garlic and marjoram until a rough paste forms. Work in the prescinseua. Stream in the olive oil, continuing to pound, until the sauce is cohesive and creamy. This is where the dish lives or dies — a sauce that is too smooth loses its mortar texture; one that is warm will break oily and coat the pasta badly. It must remain at room temperature throughout service.
5. 5
   Cook the pansoti in abundant salted boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes. They are ready when they float and the pasta at the sealed edge yields to a gentle pinch without resistance.
6. 6
   Lift the pansoti with a slotted spoon onto warmed plates. Drizzle with a thread of raw extra-virgin olive oil, then spoon the room-temperature walnut sauce over. The sauce should fall in slow ribbons, neither pooling nor clinging tight.