Roman Pasta Rotolo

At Rome's bustling Trionfale Market, Annamaria Moretti's tiny Pasta all'Uovo shop displays tray upon tray of smooth, spiraled discs made of pasta wrapped around thick, creamy ricotta and spinach filling. What might look like rolled lasagna is actually rotolo di ricotta e spinaci—a classic Italian recipe that Moretti sells by the kilo for easy take-home cooking.

The traditional method begins with homemade pasta rolled into large, thin sheets. Moretti's filling combines ricotta and spinach with mozzarella and Parmesan, then the sheet is rolled tight, wrapped in cheesecloth, and simmered in water until cooked through.

After cooling, Moretti slices the roll into rounds that reveal the beautiful spiral pattern. The sliced rotolo is reheated in an oven with tomato sauce, delivering light, creamy filling with fork-tender pasta that has a delicate chew.

Home adaptation presents pasta challenges—rolling large sheets evenly is difficult, and fresh pasta sheets have inconsistent sizing. No-boil lasagna noodles initially seemed inadequate but perform surprisingly well, producing fork-tender results without poaching. After simmering, their edges overlap to form suitable rolling sheets.

American ricotta contains excess water that causes sinking during baking. We found that we could prevent this failure by draining ricotta in a mesh strainer and squeezing spinach dry.