Tortelloni
Some meals are borne out of inspiration, some out of
the nagging curiosity to try something new. Others are thrown together from
ingredients you happen to have in the fridge. For example, I’ve had a tub
of ricotta sitting around for some time. I could have used it on several
occasions, but I had been saving it to try eggplant manicotti, in which thin
slices of grilled eggplant substitute for the pasta shells. This idea has yet
to come to fruition - I’m always lacking either eggplant or ricotta or the
oomph to cook - so last night I reevaluated the situation. In addition to the
presence of ricotta and absence of eggplant, I had a package of dumpling
wrappers left over from Chinese New Year, some hot sausage, and a bag of
spinach. Et Voila! Ricotta and spinach tortelloni with sausage
ragu.
There’s not a lot to say
about ricotta so I won’t bore you with too much background. This mild,
finely textured cheese is drawn from the whey created as a by-product of most
cheese-making processes. Historically speaking, it’s fairly new. A long
time went by when nobody knew what to do with whey, little Miss Muffit excluded.
It was only in the last hundred years that cheese makers discovered that when
whey is reheated, its casein (milk protein) particles fuse or
“flower” and create the fine, white curds called ricotta. In fact,
the word ricotta means “re-cooked.”
I have memories of Mom eating ricotta in
spoonfuls out of the container, and I don’t blame her. Cool, creamy,
subtlety cheesy, faintly tangy, smooth yet grainy, soft snowy white, it’s
like chevre as an infant, or yogurt with less acid and more body. It is also
quite versatile, as present in desserts as it is in dinner. I had planned to
investigate its adaptability last night with a sweet ricotta tart to follow the
tortelloni, but I didn’t get that far.
For the tortelloni filling, I
sautéed some fresh spinach with garlic and olive oil, pressed out the
liquid, and blended it in a food processor with ricotta, parmesan, salt, pepper
and a little grated nutmeg. Then I started the sauce with some onions, garlic,
the sausage, chopped tomatoes and herbs. While the sauce simmered, I wrapped
the tortelloni.
Wrapping tortelloni
proved to be a little more complex than last week’s dumplings. I had a
vague idea of the process from having dissected some cheese tortellini several
years ago, but it still took several attempts to get it right. The wrappers I
had were of the “square” variety (mostly rectangles and in some
cases quadrilaterals at best). I wet the edges with a little water and put a
little filling in the middle. I folded it in half diagonally, then folded it in
half again the long way, so that I had a longish strip with the filling still in
the middle. Then I formed the strip into a circle, sealing the ends together
with water, so that the point of the triangle made a little bandana-like flap on
the outside. Are you with me? I’m feeling more and more sympathetic
toward origami instruction writers.
Once
wrapped, I boiled them in batches and then slid the finished ones around in some
olive oil so they wouldn’t stick. Meanwhile, the sauce had simmered into
a respectably thick ragu, so I ladled it over shallow bowls of pasta and
sprinkled some parm on top. There is an elegance to this dish which I
attribute to the sheer magnitude of the tortelloni. While tortellini are cute
little less-than-bite-size morsels, tortelloni have heft, girth, and a
commanding proportion. They are a full bite, sometimes two, and due to their
extended surface area, they allow more of their interiors to show through–
in this case, an appealing soft sea-green.
The tortelloni were garlic-y, spinach-y,
and cheesy, and fully capable of standing up to the spicy sausage. The
creaminess of the filling kind of tamed the sauce on the palate. Jacob was a
fan. He commented appreciatively on the tanginess created by the ricotta and
the acidity of the sauce. I quite liked it to, though I found the wrappers to
be a little too slippery for this dish. In my mind (perhaps due to
dumpling-association) they leaned too far toward the consistency of rice
noodles. One of these days I’ll have to bite the bullet and make my own
pasta. Of course, seeing as how I have yet another stack of left-over dumpling
wrappers, it may not be too soon.
Posted: Fri - January 30, 2004 at 04:25 PM