Pasta alle Cenere literally means “pasta with ashes”. This name does not refer to the flavor, but to the appearance of the dish. It is pasta with a sauce of gorgonzola (Italian blue cheese), black olives, and cream. Freshly ground black pepper is added on top to make it look even more like ashes. As I love to make ravioli, I thought it would be nice to make ravioli alle cenere. The ravioli are stuffed with gorgonzola mixed with ricotta, and served with a sauce of cream and olives. The regular recipe uses gorgonzola dolce (mild gorgonzola), but as I was mixing it with ricotta, I used gorgonzola piccante. For a richer version you could also use gorgonzola mixed with mascarpone, also known as magor or gormas.

Ingredients

Makes about 36 ravioli, serves 4 to 6

• 120 grams gorgonzola piccante, diced (about 1/2 cup)
• 120 grams ricotta cheese (about 1/2 cup)
• 120 ml (1/2 cup) cream
• 30 grams pitted black olives (about 1/4 cup)
• fresh pasta dough from 2 eggs and 200 grams (1 1/3 cups) Italian 00 flour
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Make fresh pasta dough with 2 eggs using my instructions, wrap it in a cling film, and allow it to rest in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.

In the meantime, combine 120 grams of diced gorgonzola with 120 grams of ricotta cheese…

…and blend until smooth. Refrigerate the filling until you are ready to make the ravioli.

Make ravioli using my instructions.

The amount of ravioli you can make depends on how much filling you use for each. I used a heaping teaspoon of filling for each raviolo, and ended up with 34 of them.

To make the sauce, combine 120 ml of cream with 30 grams of pitted black olives…

…and blend until quite smooth.

Pour this mixture into a wide shallow pan, and heat it up until almost boiling, then keep it warm.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. When the water boils, add the ravioli, and cook them for 2 minutes only.

After 2 minutes, lift them out of the pot with a strainer and add them to the prepared sauce.

When you have added all of the ravioli, toss them gently to cover them all over with the sauce.

Serve at once on preheated plates with some freshly ground black pepper.

Wine pairing

We enjoyed this with a full-bodied fruity Vermentino di Gallura from Sardinia. The Scialà by Surrau has just a couple of grams of residual sugar and is quite high in alcohol (14%), and therefore can handle the gorgonzola.