How to Stuff Tortelloni (Or
In our May issue travel essay on Emilia-Romagna, David Downie writes:
Here’s what we Test Kitchen folks thought about that: Italians can afford to roll their stuffed pastas down a mountain because they know how to do it right. Most people’s ravioli, tortellini, etc. would tear or break open.
So in line with the May issue’s promise to help you cook like a (real) Italian, today we’ve got a lesson on stuffing pasta. Tortelloni, specifically. And while we’re on the subject of the various “torts”, let’s quickly right the linguistic wrongs they suffer on restaurant menus (again, courtesy of David Downie). To wit:
-TORTELLINI are thimble-size and supposedly resemble a woman’s navel (Oh those Italians!)
-TORTELLI are larger than tortellini, usually about the size of ravioli
-TORTELLONIare bigger still and the easiest to make. That’s why we’re using recipe for them and not the other, smaller variations on thetheme.
Now that that’s settled, find a step-by-step guide to stuffing tortelloni after the jump.
Photograph by Marcus Nilsson
Get the recipe: Ricotta Tortelloni
Once you’ve made the filling and rolled out your pasta dough, it’s time to stuff and shape the little dumplings. Once you’ve mastered this technique, you can apply it to all kinds of stuffed Italian pasta. (Top the dough circles with another round, crimp the edges, and you’ve got ravioli!) You can also improvise with the filling, trying everything from meat ragus to chopped sauteed greens.
1. Using a 3″ round cookie cutter, biscuit cutter, or drinking glass, punch out rounds from the rolled pasta dough. Spoon a rounded teaspoon of filling onto the middle of the circle and brush the edges of each dough circle with lightly beaten egg white.
2. Fold over one side of the dough to form a half moon-shaped dumpling. Seal thedough with your fingers, releasing any air trapped inside. Brush the two corners with egg white.
3. Hold each end of the half moon between your thumbs and forefingers and invert the dumpling so that the straight edge faces up. Bring up the corners so they overlap slightly to form a round dumpling.
4. Seal the corners with your fingers. Transfer tortelloni to a lightly floured rimmedbaking sheet and repeat with remaining dough and filling.
5. Build Parmesan mountain. Roll Tortelloni down with enthusiasm in order to celebrate its resilience. (This step is not pictured. But if you can make it happen, we’d love to see it.)
Illustration by Bruce Hutchinson