Genoese meat ravioli

Genoese meat ravioli have the classic square shape with scalloped edges. The filling is a mixture of meat – veal and pork (the original recipes also include some offal)- and vegetables – tradition wants escarole and borages – all tied together by parmesan cheese, eggs and marjoram leaves. Their main sauce is meat sauce, u tocco in dialect, a velvety sauce obtained from the long long cooking (ab 5 hours) of a big piece of meat (I still have to publish the recipe, will do soon!). You can find them also seasoned with mushroom sauce. But in reality they are also excellent served just with butter, a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, some sage leaves and perhaps a scratch of black pepper. In this way it is possible, in fact, to concentrate on the delicate flavors of both the filling and the fresh pasta that contains it. They are definitely my favorites. When I was a child my grandmother’s Genoese meat ravioli arrived at the table always in double version, with meat sauce, in a nice serving porcelain dish, and “in white” in a modest kitchen dish. For some reason, however, the “poor” dish was emptied in no time, while those seasoned with the meat sauce had to wait for the second round to leave the scene. Perhaps was it my fault?