Since I think I’ve received a personal (practically perfumed) note from just about every DALS reader telling me how much you love Andy’s pork ragu [1], I assume you might be interested in some suggestions for how to stretch it out into two meals. Yes, this means that you’ll have to restrain yourself from eating the entire batch on Night One, but if you have the promise of enjoying it a second time around with a minimal amount of revival effort on a weeknight…wouldn’t that make it just a little easier to get through the week? You could do what my friend Todd suggests — dump your thawed ragu in a pie dish, cover with mashed potatoes, and bake (covered with foil) for…hmmm….20 minutes at 350° for a quick shepherd’s pie. Or you could do what I did last week: Make tortellini. I don’t think of tortellini as a vehicle for leftovers as often as I should. Wonton wrappers make it so easy! And if you don’t have leftover ragu — or if you have kids who might turn their noses up at ragu tortellini — then you can always do a straight ricotta and top it with tomato sauce like the one I used for Chicken Parm [2] the other day.
10-Minute Tortellini
Since you’ve been storing it in the freezer in a flattened ziploc (right?) first you thaw your frozen ragu [1] under running water (since you’ve stored it in a flattened ziploc this should only take about 30 seconds). Stir your leftovers with a few dollops of fresh ricotta and freshly grated Parmesan in a small bowl. (You don’t want it to be very liquidy, so scooping ragu out of the ziploc with a slotted spoon might help.) If you are making ricotta ravioli, mix up another bowl with ricotta, Parmesan, and a few pinches of chopped spinach. Measurements are basically to taste.
Place a teaspoon of either mixture on top of a single wonton noodle. Fold into a triangle (you’ll need to paint the inside edges with a fingertip dipped in water to seal) and join bottom two corners to form tortellini shapes shown above. Repeat as many times as necessary. (I generally plan for 8 to 10 per grown-up, and 6 per kid.) For the ragu tortellini, you don’t need to do much else after you’ve boiled them for three minutes (your sauce is basically inside the pasta) so just swirl around in garlic and olive oil in the same pot they boiled in. But do this last step gently, wonton noodles are not as sturdy as traditional pasta. Serve ricotta tortellini with the sauce written up here [2].