August 21st
2007
"I have a confession to make..." were Oliver's words when he entered the room. "How many?" I fired right back at him. I exactly knew what had happened. I heard him walking towards the kitchen earlier where he couldn't possibly have overlooked something deliciously simmering on the stove-top, and really, how could he not be tempted? I jokingly call him the food mobster, since you really need to hold on to your plate and never dare to leave the room and your food unattended. Afterwards he'll claim it was never there to begin with. This time he had gotten hold of an Italian specialty from Calabria, ricotta balls (polpette di ricotta) cooked in a "fake sauce" (per the original meaning). Salsa finta, its actual name, arose from the fact that this tomato sauce contains no meat, which Italians seem to have considered key for a "real sauce" back in the days...
This recipe found its way into our kitchen via ARTE, a German/French TV channel. My latest discovery is their summer special covering regional food documentaries, broadcasted every evening from Monday to Friday. Each documentary features one culinary region, highlights the people that live there, talks about local problems (e.g. the challenges that come with having small, local farms) and shows them preparing typical regional dishes in their own kitchens, all put together in a very authentic and unpretentious way. More often than not the families struggle to survive with their own agriculture, yet daily food and family feasts are celebrated with such joy, it's a pure pleasure to watch.
And their recipes! Having a weak spot for hearty, down to earth food, I diligently took notes while watching family Olivetos preparing a potato-eggplant dish, ricotta balls and much more. Watching with an empty stomach was almost torture! Checking with ARTE's website right after made my notes redundant though, oh well. With a few minor changes the recipes turned out beautifully. Easy to prepare and light in consistency, perfect for a rainy August evening - ok, the rain is not crucial ;)
Preparing the sauce (Salsa finta):
Heat the olive oil in a larger pan. Add the finely diced onions and sauté until translucent, then add the tomato puree and lastly the canned tomatoes, crushed or whole. If I use whole ones, I carefully mash them with my fingers right over the pan, that way I can remove the stems easily. Season with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and a generous dash of sugar, which helps to balance the tomatoes' acidity nicely.
Let it cook lightly for about 15 minutes and add more salt and pepper if necessary. The original recipe makes you add fresh basil to the pan at the same time as you add the tomatoes, but I prefer to add a handful just before serving, maybe a minute or two, to ensure the basil is still fragrant and green.
Preparing the ricotta balls (Polpette di ricotta):
Drain the ricotta over a fine-mesh sieve for at least an hour. Put in a large bowl, together with the finely grated parmesan cheese, one egg, the breadcrumbs, chopped parsley and season with salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. Finally add two or three tablespoons of the salsa finta, then start working the ingredients together with your hands and season to taste. If the mix is too smooth to form balls of the size of a walnut, add more breadcrumbs, if it is too firm, add more salsa finta.
Form the balls, add them to the pan of salsa finta and let them cook right in the simmering sauce for about 10 minutes. Don't forget to sway the pan from time to time to ensure the little balls get cooked through evenly. Just a minute or two before serving add a handful of basil leaves (whole, torn or cut into chiffonade, you decide) to the pan. The original recipe suggests eating the ricotta balls with salsa finta AND pasta, we savored them without pasta, just like we'd enjoy gnocchi, served with some more freshly grated parmesan and black pepper. No pasta required - if you ask me!
Salsa finta & polpette di ricotta
Recipe source: adapted from Arte recipes 1 & 2
Preparing the sauce and ricotta balls: ~45 minutes (plus draining ricotta)
.
Ingredients (serves 2-3):
Salsa finta:
4 tbsp olive oil
1 mid-sized onion
2 tbsp tomato puree
~600g canned tomatoes, whole or crushed (including juice)
a generous dash of sugar
sea salt, freshly ground black pepper
a handful of fresh basil leaves
.
Polpette di ricotta:
250g ricotta
40-50g freshly grated parmesan
1 mid-sized egg
100g breadcrumbs
~ a handful chopped fresh parsley
sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and nutmeg to taste
2-3 tbsp of salsa finta
.
to serve: freshly grated parmesan, freshly ground black pepper
At first I thought you had made meatballs in tomato sauce, but ricotta balls? That's genius! I love ricotta gnocchi and I'm sure I will love these, too!!!!
That looks fantastic! I also love ARTE's documentaries as they are very interesting...
Hi from Hamburg! The color of your cheese balls made me think of meat balls at first! They all seem to be equal in size, how did you manage that?
Wow! that looks amazing! I'll have to give it a try!
I'm usually of the opinion that real sauce needs meat, too, but this looks reeeeeally tempting...do you think the sauce would go well with, say, gorgonzola gnocchi?
How bad was the damage? These are definitely fork-worthy!
Oh. How. Cute. If I can find some ricotta in the fridge, I will make it tonight.
Genius use of ricotta, particularly when the garden is lush with basil. Many thanks.
I've only prepared ricotta gnocchi with basil so far, this is a more than welcome twist for my recipe archive. Adding some tomato sauce to the dough is a clever move!
I made this for dinner last night and it was delicious! Thank you for providing an new (to me, at least) use for ricotta.
Lecker, lecker, lecker. I've heard of salsa finta before (and eaten it), but never with polpette di ricotta! So much prettier, too, than ricotta balls... Can't wait to try this.
This sounds so delicious- I have never heard of ricotta balls before. it sounds like a delicious alternative to pasta for those of us trying to limit our carbs! Thanks for sharing.
These look absolutely mouth -watering.
reminds me of indian "paneer Koftes". this is a must try! :- )
What a nice recipe for Vegetarians who miss meatballs in red sauce!
this would be a winner for me. i love ricotta cheese and making little cheese balls - perfect. would these be made with fresh breadcrumbs? i am assuming so... let me know please - thank you
Sounds very delicious. I love salsa finta and the ricotta balls will be great, I am sure. Good to know that ARTE broadcasts food documentaries. I hardly watched TV in the past few months because there was no interesting stuff shown...
Karin, After two or three test runs it's actually pretty easy, but even if they differ a little, who cares ;)
Jim, Definitely yes! Gorgonzola gnocchi sound delicious, I think salsa finta is a perfectly light and fresh companion!
Alanna, Luckily Oliver contained himself, he knew it was the dish I had planned for dinner... But even a clean pan wouldn't have been much of a surprise to me...
Sheila, Thank you for your lovely feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed them as much as we did :)
Claudia, I used breadcrumbs from my local bakery, which are made out of stale bread rolls. So I wouldn't necessarily call them fresh. I'd say really fresh breadcrumbs have a different texture and might produce a different dough - not sure if forming balls would still work out. Let me know if you try!
I've made your ricotta balls and the whole family loved them! I used basil as a substitute for parsley because my kids don't like parsley and it worked very well. We will have it again!
I have never seen or tasted ricotta balls before. They look fantastic, I really want to try and make them!
looks absolutely lovely I am definetely going to make this as I haven't had ricotta for ages...thank you
Jasmine, Good idea, I may just try it with a new batch. Glad you enjoyed the recipe!
I absolutely love your blog. You are the best!
Thanks for the idea to add sugar to tomatoes sauce.
Ha! Like others here I instantly thought those were meatballs... and I almost didn't click through. Glad I did! This will definitely be tested on my fiance in the near future. Thanks!
Your recipes are usually a sure hit with me when I make them. However, my reaction to this one is "don't make again category"--but perhaps that was due to my selection of ingredients? I used partial skim ricotta--which may be the biggest problem--and the insides of heirloom tomatoes from my organic farm (the tomatoes had been stuffed)--or maybe it's just the vagaries of our personal taste preferences. All else followed to form--although I found that my ricotta didn't drain much and I was forced to add a lot of bread crumbs. any insights here?
Looks delicious! Am definitely gonna try this recipe tonite. Will substitute the locally available Indian Paneer for ricotta. Just curious, if slightly browning the ricotta balls under an oven for 7-10 minutes before popping them into the sauce would make a difference to the taste, texture and color? Or is it my Indian genes wanting to over-cook a perfectly sounding recipe?
Love your blog, have come back after a very long time and surely gonna spend quite some time out here.!
I´m in fact cooking this right now and while I don´t have basil or parsley at hand (too late to go to the shops, it was a quick decision to cook this) it still looks good to me. It´s almost finished now and I`m really happy that I found your recipe because I had no idea what to cook and I LOVE ricotta!
It smells so good!
Thank you so much. This made my day!
What a unique way to use ricotta! I'll definitely be trying this recipe - thank you!