Fusilli with ricotta

In Naples, there is a rule everybody follows: ragout never gets thrown away. Among Neapolitan traditional recipes, many feature leftover ragout sauce from Sunday lunch, as their main ingredient. For example, there is the famous “scarpariello”, or maccheroni – not to be confused with macaroni – with leftover ragout and a generous portion of grated parmesan. It is a pasta dish that shoemakers used to prepare in their shops on Mondays (and sometimes, also other days). Or there is “frittata di maccheroni”, omelet with maccheroni, a recipe that is great any time of the year and history’s first street food. Or again, “pasta ripassata”, a lighter version of the omelet. However, one of the most delicious recipes made with leftover ragout sauce is certainly “maccheroni con ricotta”, ricotta being a soft and sweet cheese that creates a nice contrast with the strong taste of ragout, giving it a creamy and tasty texture. Traditionally, this dish requires “mafalde” a long pasta shape, but we have chosen to innovate it using a short pasta shape selected from those grouped under the name “maccheroni”, called “fusilli”, which, with their corkscrew form, perfectly embrace the sauce, thick with ricotta, creating an explosion of flavor. To be honest, in Naples, we make more ragout sauce than is needed, on purpose.