Pallotte cacio e uova - the light version

[spacedlaw]

Pallotte cacio e uova (literally cheese and egg balls) are one of those dishes that are truly wonderful, simple and tasty until you actually start reading the recipe and discover that they are made of monstrous amounts of hard cured cheese (3 types of them, usually) and an alarming number of eggs. You might be made of a stronger stuff, but my mind sort of goes “yickes!” and goes into hiding.

But, as previously mentioned, they are tasty and simple to make so, after a good deal of hide and seek, I managed to coax my mind into fomenting a lighter version of the dish, a riff on gnuddi (herb and ricotta gnocchi). I also opted for the version of the Pallotte that are poached in tomato sauce rather than fried and then smothered in sauce (as is done in Abruzzo, I believe).

My riff goes like this:  Take 200g of ricotta (preferably ewe milk but it’s up to you), add about 100g of white day old bread,

Add 2 eggs, mix and let rest for half an hour (the bread needs to absorb the moisture).

Add 100g of grated pecorino Romano cheese and 100g of grated grana Padano. Plenty of black pepper. NO SALT. You can add some grated nutmeg if you like.

Stir well. Let rest a bit.

While it does, prepare your tomato sauce in the usual way. Since we will be poaching the cheese balls into it, you will need to prepare in in a large saucepan and add water to it ( for mine I use a large jar of chunkyish sauce and added as much water - it helps cleaning the jar). Bring to a gentle simmer.

Try to form balls with your mixture. If the consistency is too loose, add some breadcrumbs until it hold together. The amount needed will depend on the amount of liquid in your ricotta and in the dryness of your old bread. You can opt for large walnut or tangerine size.

Roll each ball into flour in order to eat it.

Lower them in the sauce and once the heat has gone up again to nearly boiling point, count 5 to 10 minutes cooking time, depending on the size of your balls. Let them in the sauce until serving time. Serving is usually 3 to 4 Pallotte per person, with a little sauce but it’s up to you, eh.
 

The rest of the sauce (there should be some) can be used either for pasta later on or turned into tomato soup..