Spinach and Ricotta Tortellini

Making stuffed pastas is a lovely way to pass the afternoon. My preference is not to do it alone, as it borders on the tedious side of lovely pass times after a while, but at least no one complains about what music I choose to listen to this way. Repetitive tasks like this tend to go from tedious to tranquil once you put your mind away from them, a sort of meditative way of making dinner.

Last week I made an attempt at making giant raviolis stuffed with butternut squash puree. They looked and tasted fantastic until I decided to freeze them, at which point they became useless as the filling would not thaw in the time it took to cook the pasta. Ordinarily though you can get away with making a very large batch of tortellini, ravioli, or what have you, freeze them individually (as pictured, so they don’t stick together) and then toss them all into a freezer seal bag. Then you can just plunk them into boiling water when you need them for a quick dinner. I tend to make a large batch, freeze them and promptly forget about them until I throw them away when I clean out the freezer, so I gave away what we didn’t eat for dinner.

Tortellini can be stuffed with any cooked filling you like, so follow the methodology and substitute at will. Tortellini take naturally to forcemeats (think a pork and/or veal meatball mixture), cheeses and seafood and are great with chicken stock, pesto, tomato and cream sauces. I chose spinach and ricotta in large part because that’s just what I had on hand, which I cooked up with garlic butter and sauteed wild mushrooms and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.

There are two ways that you can make tortellini, either from a square or from a circle. I forgot that I actually have a square cutter now and went the circle route that I usually do, because there’s invariably something round to cut shapes out with (a recycling can, a pint glass, etc.) but never something square. If the pasta is not perfectly square to start, the edges do not match up and all hell breaks loose. With circles you don’t get that nice “hat” look that you do with squares though. Small loss really, in my opinion.

For a cheat, you can always use wonton wrappers, which are perfectly sized for such purposes and require no dough preparation or pasta machine rolling. You won’t be able to achieve the brilliant yellow or green of making these totally from scratch, but they will taste similar enough. A box of wonton wrappers is cheap, so if you’re ever looking to make your own stuffed pasta but can’t be bothered with making the pasta itself, it’s a brilliant shortcut.

Spinach and Ricotta Tortellini

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 50g cooked spinach
• 1 large egg yolk

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 small red chili, seeded and minced
• 250g frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 250g whole milk ricotta
• salt and pepper

1. Combine the flour, egg and egg yolk in a bowl, adding water a teaspoon at a time, if necessary, to make a cohesive dough. Knead by hand until it holds together well, then cover with plastic wrap and set aside.
2. Repeat the same procedure, except adding cooked spinach in place of the large egg.
3. Heat the olive oil, garlic and chili in a saute pan over medium-high heat until the garlic becomes fragrant. Add the spinach and nutmeg, stirring to coat, and cook for a minute or two to evaporate any residual liquid.
4. Allow the spinach to cool, then combine it with the ricotta and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cool completely before assembling tortellini.
5. Roll out the pasta to number 1 thickness on a pasta machine and then cut out circles or perfect squares.
6. Place 1/2 to 3/4 of a teaspoon of the prepared filling into the center of the cut out pasta. Fold the edges over to create a seal. If using a square, match the tips to make a trianglular shape. Then, fold the sides over to touch and press together. You may need to use a tiny bit of egg wash to glue the pasta together if it is too dry. Repeat with the remaining pasta until all of the filling is used up.

This will make between 90 and 120 tortellini, depending on how frugal you are with rerolling the pasta and distributing the filling.

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