Fiddly things to make and you need plenty of time but worth the effort to wow your guests with this tasty starter. Known as either Malfatti (little rolls of ricotta) or Gnudi (little balls of ricotta), the secret is allowing a skin to form around the balls. They can be temperamental but using flour in the recipe does help as a binding agent.

This will serve 8 as a starter or 4 as a main

Serve with sage butter or nestled in a tomato sauce.

Put the ricotta in a sieve lined with muslin over a bowl, place in the fridge for a couple of hours to drain any excess moisture.

In large pan, add a splash of water and wilt the spinach with a generous few pinches of salt. Drain and leave to cool completely. Squeeze as much excess water out of the spinach and finely chop.

In the spinach bowl, add the ricotta, flour,  50g of the semolina flour, reserving the rest for later, egg, parmesan and pinch of nutmeg. Stir until evenly mixed.

Prepare a dish that will fit 20 walnut size dumplings by using half the remaining semolina to cover the bottom. I find forming the dumplings with damp hands helps but it’s always going to be a messy job. Roll out 20 walnut sized dumplings and place them on the semolina. When they are all done, sprinkle with the remaining semolina and loosely cover with baking parchment. Leave in the fridge for between 12-24 hours to form a skin.

Cooking the dumplings

When ready to cook, remove the dumplings from the semolina and shake off excess. In a wide pan add the butter along withe sage leaves and add 50ml of water. Heat until the butter has melted then set aside. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, turn the heat right down so the water is just simmering.  Cook the dumplings in batches by lowering them carefully and cooking for 2-3 minutes. They will float when cooked. remove with a slotted spoon and put in the pan with the butter. Continue until all dumplings are cooked.

Return the pan with the dumplings and butter to the heat and warm through for a couple of minutes.