Ricotta polpette with tomato sauce | Recipe | V-ZUG Vietnam

Ricotta polpette with tomato sauce

A cucina povera dish from southern Italy: ricotta polpette in a spicy tomato sauce – nutritious, flavoursome and a clever way to use up leftover bread.

Preparation

30 minutes

Cooking time

30 minutes

Portions

4

CombiSteamer V4000 from 2021

Bread

250 g day-old bread

chopped up

250 ml milk

Ricotta polpette

250 g ricotta

200 g frozen spinach

defrosted, coarsely chopped

80 g grated Parmesan

1 egg

2 sprigs of flat-leaved parsley

finely chopped

1 clove of garlic

crushed

1½ tsp salt

Some pepper

Tomato sauce

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion

finely chopped

1 tbsp tomato purée

800 g skinned cherry tomatoes (tinned) or plum tomatoes (tinned)

200 ml water

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp pine nuts

roasted

Some flat-leaved parsley

coarsely chopped

Bread

Put the bread in a bowl, pour over the milk and leave to soak for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Blend the milk-soaked bread in a food processor or using a handheld blender.

Ricotta polpette

Put the blended bread into a large mixing bowl along with the ricotta and all the ingredients up to and including the pepper, knead by hand until the mixture is compact. Shape the mixture into about 5 cm large balls.

Tomato sauce

Preheat the cooking space to 200 °C using the hot air with steaming mode. Heat the oil in a pan. Sauté the onions over a medium heat for about 5 minutes until golden brown. Add the tomato purée and sweat briefly. Add the tomatoes, water, sugar and salt and bring to the boil. Turn the sauce into an ovenproof dish, set the balls on top and drizzle with olive oil. Put the dish on the wire shelf in the preheated cooking space and cook for about 30 minutes. Remove from the cooking space and scatter over the pine nuts and parsley.

(Pre-)heat cooking space to 200 °C with Hot air + steaming

Put the food in

Hot air + steaming 200 °C for 30 Mins

Tips

This recipe is good for using up leftover bread, but fresh bread can also be used, in which case reduce the milk by half.

The pine nuts can be swapped for coarsely chopped walnuts or sunflower seeds.

Additional information

Created by

V-ZUG Ltd.

Created on

8/4/25