How to make a Spinach (or any other kind of) Sformato

A sformato is similar to a soufflé, but not as airy, and therefore doesn't require the care in preparation its French cousin does -- there's no danger that it will deflate. But a sformato is quite elegant, and also quite tasty, and this is why Alessio Pesucci, who cooks at the Locanda Del Gallo not far from Florence, showed how to make them in the course of a cooking lesson.

"I'm really illustrating a procedure more than a recipe," he said, noting that while he used spinach, he could just as easily have used the same volume of cooked cauliflower, broccoli, wild mushrooms (porcini are heavenly), or even rice, and that while the ricotta is a requirement, he could easily have used a different cheese instead of Parmigiano, for example Fontina, Pecorino Romano, or even mild Gorgonzola. What's important is that the flavors of the various ingredients go together.

The other thing to note is that while Alessio made individual sformati about the size of a muffin, one could also make a single larger sformato, or even pour the sformato batter into a ring bold, at which point one will obtain a ring-shaped sformato that's a beautiful (and elegant) container for a stew. Sformato di riso, rice sformato, is especially well suited for this role.