This year, the Burpee Kitchen Garden celebrates culinary traditions from around the world that are practiced here in Maine. Inspired by the experiences and heritage of local chefs, each garden plot highlights the ingredients, stories, and cultural connections that food brings to the table.
Ingredients on display in the Pansotti garden bed, including wheat for the pasta flour.
Salsa Verde Recipe
Detail of filling the ravioli at Solo Italiano Restaurant in Portland, Maine.
Pansotti, which means “big belly” in Italian, is a version of ravioli originally from Sori, a small town outside of Genova in Liguria, a coastal north-western region of Italy. This version of ravioli is filled with an assortment of wild “herbs” –foraged leafy greens like nettles, borage, dandelion, wild chards, spinach, and clover. Known in the Genovese dialect as prebugiun, this wild herb mixture dates back to medieval times, when people started collecting these greens and eating them together as a soup.
This mixture is made of anything that can be found growing wildly in the early spring and summer months, a reflection of the time and place the meal is being prepared. The greens are first steamed together and after that, the excess water is squeezed out. This mixture is then ground up and mixed with sweet, fresh ricotta as well as Parmigiano for its saltiness. It is very simple, fresh tasting, and seasonal.
The traditional sauce for this dish is a walnut pesto containing crushed walnuts, pinenuts, nutmeg, bread soaked in milk, salt, Parmigiano, and olive oil. (Fun fact: anything made in a mortar and pestle is considered a pesto in Italy.)
Noceto, another Ligurian town higher in the mountains behind Sori, is famous for its nuts and made its walnut pesto to match the pansotti of Sori.
Pansotti Filling Recipe
INGREDIENTS
Roughly 2 cups each before blanching:
Spinach
Borage
Dandelion
Clover
Chard
Nettles
1 teaspoon of chopped Marjoram
1/4 teaspoon of grated Nutmeg
1 teaspoon of salt
1 Cup of Ricotta
1/4 cup Parmesan
STEPS:
Blanch all greens and squeeze our the water.
Blend greens with ricotta, parmesan, nutmeg, salt and marjoram
Use this filling for your ravioli dough, fill and seal the pasta.
Add sealed pasta to salted boiling water.
Serve with walnut pesto or melted sage.
Recipes carry more than flavors. They connect people to family traditions, cultural heritage, and the plants that make every meal possible. In the Burpee Kitchen Garden, these stories grow side by side.
Meet the chef.
Paolo Laboa is the executive chef of Solo Italiano in Portland, Maine. His journey started in his mother’s kitchen, where he learned the secrets of real Genovese cooking, the pinnacle of Northern Italian cuisine.
“Cooking is what I love and I want each ingredient to sing. Simplicity is my goal. If there are five ingredients, I want you to taste all five of them.” The beauty is in the ingredient; they are not to be masked or overcomplicated. Less is more and slower is better (“piano piano”).
We are but creative vehicles for what our soil and sea can provide for us.
