Pansoti con Salsa di Noci

Pansoti are the stuffed pasta of Liguria, and they exist nowhere else in Italy with the same meaning. The name comes from the Genoese dialect word for belly, pansa, because the little triangles swell with filling like contented stomachs. This is not ravioli. This is not tortellini. This is something particular to the steep hillsides above the Ligurian Sea, where wild herbs grow in profusion and walnuts fall from ancient trees.

The filling requires preboggion, the traditional mixture of wild greens that Ligurian women gathered from the hillsides. Borage is essential when you can find it, with its cucumber freshness and slight rasp on the tongue. Swiss chard provides body. The greens meet prescinseua, that peculiar Ligurian fresh cheese somewhere between yogurt and ricotta, tangy and light. If you cannot find prescinseua, you must approximate it. Nothing else gives the filling its proper character.

The walnut sauce contains no cream. Americans imagine that creamy means cream was added. The Ligurians know that walnuts, properly pounded with bread soaked in milk, become creamy on their own. The bread is the secret. It binds the sauce and gives it body without heaviness. You must blanch the walnuts and remove their skins, or the sauce will be bitter and brown instead of pale and sweet.