Sausage Filling – New recipe, needs to be edited
Be sure to strain the ricotta through a wire mesh strainer and cook down the spinach to release their water content. This helps to prevent the ravioli from becoming soggy. This filling is versatile enough to add finely chopped mushrooms or sausage. Be sure to cook down any other ingredients used in the filling prior to mixing into the ricotta.
- Yield
- 1 1/2 cups
Directions
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Strain ricotta through a wire mesh strainer or cheese cloth.
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In a medium bowl, combine the pork, prosciutto, Parmesan, rosemary, nutmeg, garlic, red pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon salt, and a few cracks of black pepper. Mix until very evenly blended. Cover and refrigerate filling for at least 2 hours (this helps the flavors meld together). Set aside until it is time to fill the tortellini.
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Shaping Tortellini – New section, needs to be edited
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Pro-Tips: Less filling is more. It’s tempting to add extra filling, but too much filling will make it a challenge to seal the tortellini with enough space for folding. Typically, you don’t need more than a teaspoon of filling for each three-inch pasta piece.
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Make it ahead of time. While both the tortellini and brodo take time to prepare, you can make them ahead of time, separately. Make the soup recipe one day and the tortellini recipe another day. Once both components are ready, the tortellini soup comes together in minutes. You can freeze tortellini for up to 3 months before cooking. After shaping, place the tortellini on a floured sheet tray without touching each other, and flash freeze for 1 hour. Transfer them to a freezer bag or container to freeze up tp three months. Cook straight from frozen into boiling water. Frozen tortellini may take a few minutes longer to float to the top.
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Roll the dough very thin. The thinner the dough, the more delicate the pasta will turn out. As the old saying explains, you should be able to read the newspaper through a sheet of properly rolled pasta dough. Rolling the dough correctly also makes it easier to seal the edges and encase your filling.
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Seal the edges. Tortellini rely on folding to seal its contents inside. Sealing the pasta well helps ensure the filling will not leak during the cooking process.
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After the dough has rested, Use a bench scraper or butter knife to divide the pasta dough into 2 or 3 equally sized sections. Work with one section at a time, keeping the remaining sections wrapped to prevent them from drying out.
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Roll the dough as thinly as possible, using a rolling pin or a pasta machine. With a pasta machine, gradually move to smaller settings as you feed it through the roller, until the thinnest setting.
From Shawnie's class “Italian Tortellini en Brodo Workshop”
