This section is from the book "Simple Italian Cookery", by Antonia Isola. Also available from Amazon: Simple Italian Cookery.
Prepare the paste as in the preceding receipt.
Take whatever meat is desired—chicken, turkey, or veal—this must always be cooked. (Left-over meat may be utilized this way.) Chop the meat very fine, add one tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese, one egg, a dash of nutmeg, a dash of grated lemon-peel, one tablespoon of butter, cold. Mix these ingredients in a bowl. Take a teaspoon of the mixture and put it into the extended paste, about two inches from the edge.
Take another spoonful and put it about two inches away from the first spoonful. Continue to do this until you have a row of teaspoonfuls across the paste. Then fold over the edge of the paste so as to cover the spoonfuls of mixture, and cut across the paste at the bottom of them. Then cut into squares with the meat in the middle of each square; press down the paste a little at the edges so the meat cannot fall out. Continue to do this until all the meat and the paste are used up.
Put the little squares of paste and meat into the boiling salted water a few at a time, and boil for ten minutes. Serve with tomato sauce, or butter and grated Parmesan cheese.
Take one lamb's brains and parboil in slightly salted water for five minutes. Put into a bowl with a small quantity of curds, one egg, salt and pepper, dash of nutmeg, and a little grated Parmesan cheese, and mix all together. Then put by teaspoonfuls on the paste as in preceding receipt. Cook for ten minutes in boiling salted water, and serve with tomato sauce.
1 small bunch of spinach.
1/2 pound of curds .
Cook the spinach, drain, and chop up fine, add the curds, one egg, salt and pepper, dash of nutmeg, and a little grated cheese. Add to the paste, and boil as before.
These ravioli can be used also as a dessert by preparing them as follows:
Take 1/2 pound of flour.
1 tablespoon of butter 2 tablespoons of lard.
Work this into a paste and roll out thin.
Take one-half pound of curds, add one egg, and the yolk of a second egg, two tablespoons of granulated sugar, a few drops of extract of vanilla. Mix well together and add to the paste as before. Then fry in lard until a golden brown. Serve with powdered sugar.
 
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