Maltagliati with Pork and Tomato Ragù

Nothing gets thrown away in my kitchen if I can turn it into another meal. Those odd little pastry offcuts might not look like much, but toss them into a slow-cooked pork and tomato sauce and suddenly leftovers become dinner.  Rustic wonton pastry maltagliati tossed with pork mince, tomatoes, red wine, Parmesan and herbs in a rich homemade ragù.

If you have been following what I have been cooking lately, you might remember the Pork and Prawn Ravioli we made using yellow wonton wrappers. It was my shortcut for making fresh ravioli without having to prepare and roll pasta dough from scratch, and it worked surprisingly well. The wrappers were thin, silky and delicate once cooked.

There was only one problem.

After cutting those square wonton wrappers into neat circles for the ravioli, I was left with a pile of odd-shaped pastry trimmings. There were little triangles, curved strips, short ribbons and pieces that didn’t resemble anything useful.

Some people might look at those scraps and see rubbish.

I looked at them and saw another pasta dish.

And conveniently, Italians already have a name for exactly this kind of cooking: maltagliati.

I Really Don’t Like Wasting Food

I have always tried to make the most out of ingredients in my kitchen. If something still has flavour in it, there is usually another dish hiding somewhere.

Vegetable trimmings can become stock for soups. Bones that still have meat attached can be simmered until that meat falls away, then transformed into something completely different, perhaps even pulled pork. Prawn heads and shells are definitely not rubbish in my kitchen. Those things contain some of the strongest flavour in the entire prawn, so I use them to make a rich prawn stock.

This recipe follows exactly the same philosophy.

We already paid for those wonton wrappers. We already used the nice round centres to make ravioli. Why throw the remaining pastry away when it can still become dinner?

What makes this even better is that using scraps isn’t some modern zero-waste trick I invented. It is essentially the entire reason maltagliati exists.

What Exactly Is Maltagliati?

The name tells you almost everything.

Maltagliati literally translates to “badly cut” in Italian, which is perhaps one of the most honest pasta names ever invented.

When Italian cooks rolled fresh egg pasta into large sheets for dishes such as tagliatelle, lasagne or stuffed pasta, trimming those sheets into uniform shapes naturally produced leftover edges and irregular pieces.

Those scraps were perfectly good pasta, so instead of throwing them away, cooks cut them roughly and used them in another dish.

No uniform size. No perfect shape. No concern about presentation.

That rustic collection of pasta offcuts eventually became known as maltagliati.

It is one of those wonderful examples of how traditional cooking often developed around practicality rather than aesthetics.

From Kitchen Scraps to a Pasta Shape

Maltagliati is particularly associated with Emilia-Romagna, one of Italy’s great fresh-pasta regions.

This is the same part of Italy famous for tagliatelle, tortellini, lasagne and many other egg-pasta preparations. When generations of cooks repeatedly rolled and trimmed pasta dough, finding a use for every piece simply made sense.

Historically, those irregular pieces could find their way into brothy soups and bean dishes as well as sauces. Their inconsistent shapes were not a flaw. That was precisely their character.

That is why my leftover wonton pastry works remarkably well here.

It isn’t traditional pasta dough, but the idea behind using it could hardly be more traditional.

Wonton Pastry Works Surprisingly Well

Yellow wonton pastry has already proven itself with our ravioli, so I knew these scraps would work.

The texture is slightly different from handmade Italian egg pasta, but different doesn’t necessarily mean worse. Wonton pastry is usually thinner, which gives the cooked pieces an incredibly soft and delicate texture.

It also saves a lot of time.

There is no kneading, resting or rolling involved. You simply take those leftover pieces, separate anything that has stuck together, dust them lightly with flour and drop them into boiling salted water.

And please don’t try to make them look uniform.

If you start trimming your maltagliati into perfectly matching shapes, you are almost defeating the purpose of the dish. Those weird triangles, ribbons and crooked pieces are exactly what you want.

A Proper Ragù for Those Irregular Pieces

For the sauce, I wanted something hearty enough to cling to all those different surfaces, so I made a pork and tomato ragù.

It starts with the familiar combination of onion, carrot and celery slowly softened in olive oil. Garlic follows, then pork mince, which I cook long enough to develop some browned edges rather than simply turning grey.

That browning matters because it gives the sauce considerably more depth.

Tomato paste gets cooked briefly before the red wine goes in. Again, this is a small detail, but cooking the tomato paste concentrates its flavour and removes that raw taste.

Then come whole peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand, together with oregano and thyme. From there, the sauce simply needs time.

Nothing complicated.

Just let everything simmer until the tomatoes become richer, the pork flavours the sauce and the entire ragù thickens enough to coat the pasta.

Be Careful With the Cooking Time

There is one important difference between these wonton pastry scraps and conventional maltagliati: cooking time.

Traditional fresh egg pasta can take several minutes depending on its thickness. Wonton wrappers can be much thinner, so don’t simply set a timer and walk away.

Start checking them at around two minutes.

Taste one. If it is tender but still strong enough to survive being tossed with the ragù, it is ready.

Before draining, save some pasta water. That cloudy, starchy liquid helps loosen the ragù while encouraging it to cling to the pasta.

Then gently toss everything together for another minute or two.

Sometimes Scraps Make the Best Meals

I love recipes like this because they remind us that cooking doesn’t always need to start with a shopping list.

Sometimes you look at what you already have and work backwards.

Those leftover wonton pastry trimmings could easily have gone into the bin after making our ravioli. Instead, they became Maltagliati with Pork and Tomato Ragù, another complete meal from an ingredient we had already used once.

And somehow the irregularity makes it even better.

Every forkful is slightly different. Some pieces are wide and silky, others small and folded, and all those uneven surfaces grab onto the pork and tomato ragù beautifully.

Finish it with a generous amount of Parmigiano Reggiano, fresh parsley and a little extra virgin olive oil and nobody looking at the plate would think they were eating scraps.

Perhaps that is the best thing about maltagliati. It turns imperfection into the entire point of the dish.

Maltagliati with Pork and Tomato Ragù

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• Author: Raymund
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 40 mins
• Total Time: 55 mins
• Yield: 4 1x
• Category: Main Course
• Cuisine: Fusion, Italian

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Description

Rustic wonton pastry maltagliati tossed with pork mince, tomatoes, red wine, Parmesan and herbs in a rich homemade ragù.

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Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

Maltagliati

• 300 g wonton pastry trimmings or scraps
• plain flour, for dusting
• salt, for the cooking water

Pork and Tomato Ragù

• 500 g pork mince (30% fat)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 small carrot, finely chopped
• 1 celery stalk, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 800 g canned whole peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes, optional
• 1 tsp sugar, if needed
• Salt, to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper

To Serve

• Parmigiano Reggiano, freshly grated
• Handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• Extra virgin olive oil

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Instructions

1. Heat the olive oil in a large heavy frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot and celery, then gently sauté for around 6 minutes until softened.
2. Add the garlic and cook for another minute until fragrant. Increase the heat slightly, add the pork mince and break it apart with a wooden spoon. Cook until no longer pink and some of the pork develops nicely browned edges.
3. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes, allowing it to caramelise slightly.
4. Pour in the red wine and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, scraping the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
5. Add the crushed tomatoes, oregano, thyme and chilli flakes if using. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
6. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Taste towards the end and add a teaspoon of sugar only if the tomatoes are particularly acidic.
7. Meanwhile, prepare the wonton pastry scraps. Leave smaller pieces as they are and roughly cut particularly large pieces into irregular triangles, rectangles or ribbons. Dust lightly with flour and carefully separate any pieces that have stuck together.
8. Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Shake excess flour from the pastry and add the maltagliati.
9. Cook for approximately 2 to 4 minutes, checking the texture after 2 minutes. The pastry should be tender but retain enough structure to withstand tossing with the ragù.
10. Reserve about 1 cup of the pasta cooking water before draining.
11. Transfer the maltagliati directly into the pork and tomato ragù. Add a splash of reserved cooking water and gently toss over medium heat for 1 to 2 minutes until the sauce coats every piece.
12. Divide between four plates, then finish generously with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano, chopped parsley and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

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Notes

• Don’t try to make your wonton pastry scraps uniform. The random triangles, ribbons and odd shapes are exactly what maltagliati is supposed to look like.
• Wonton pastry can be considerably thinner than traditional handmade egg pasta, so use the suggested cooking time only as a guide. Start tasting after about 2 minutes.
• The pastry should remain intact when tossed through the ragù. Overcooking can make very thin wonton pastry too delicate and prone to tearing.