Tortellini in Brodo
Tortellini in Brodo
This recipe is really just magic on a plate. Have you ever had the pleasure to taste a good Tortellini in Brodo while roaming the streets of Bologna?
Before I realized I wanted to teach fresh pasta I found myself taking cooking classes while on vacation. One of the most impactful classes I took was a 3 day course at Vecchia Scuola Bolognese, in Bologna of course. It was 3 days of rolling egg pasta dough by rolling pin, and each round was 600 grams of flour with 6 eggs. On the last day we gathered around all chipping in to make the tiniest of tortellini. It really is team work to get these done. First, tortellini are super tiny they should fit about 5 to a spoon. Second, while the pasta sheet is out and we are all shaping the tortellini, it’s always drying. You have to move fast to get them all closed, and not let the pasta sheet dry which is why the more hands the better.
This is not one of those recipes with shortcuts, it’s one of those recipes that takes hours to make. It does help if you make the stock the day before. While the soup is made with a stock of beef and chicken bones, I made individual stocks. One of beef, one of chicken, and then blended. I found this more to my liking and saved the extra stock in food saver bags in the freezer for other recipes
Tortellini
Tortellini in Brodo
Serves 4 to 6
Ingredients:
2 L chicken & beef stock blend
100 grams Prosciutto, diced
100 grams pork neck
100 grams mortadella, diced
Dry white wine
100 Parmigiano Reggiano
Nutmeg, grated to taste
3 eggs
2 grams of 00 flour
Salt to taste
Piped Filling on Tortellini Sheets
Method:
Dice the pork neck meat into small pieces. In a pan, drizzle some EVOO and cook the pork neck stirring often. After it’s no longer pink, add a splash of white wine picking up any bits stuck to the pan. Let the alcohol burn off and place the pork in a food processor or high powered blender. I use the Foodi Ninja which can easily handle this job. Once the pork has cooled off, add the prosciutto and mortadella. Blend until it’s almost smooth. Add the Parmigiano Reggiano, and season with freshly grated nutmeg and salt to taste. Blend again. Add the egg, and blend until you get a homogenous mixture. Place the mixture into a piping bag and chill.
Make an egg dough with 200 grams of 00 flour and 2 eggs using the well method or using your kitchen aid with the dough hook. You can see detailed instructions HERE
Let the dough rest, and when you’re ready to roll the dough, set up your station.
You want your piping bag with the filling, your pasta machine or rolling pin, a spray bottle filled with a cup of water, a ruler, and a way to cut the tortellini. You need to have everything set up, because once you roll out the sheet it starts to dry so you need to move fast. If you’re hand rolling, the sheet has to be very thin, thin enough that you can see through it, I mean you can, read-a-book-through-the-sheet, see through. On the Atlas Marcato pasta machine, I rolled to at least a 6. When you roll your sheet, cut squares that are 3 x 3 cm. Quickly pipe out the filling into the squares, the filling should be the size of about a chickpea. Slightly wet the edges on half of the square. Then, bring the bottom point to meet the top point and press along the edges, squeezing any air out. Then, bring the two sides down around your finger tip or pinky and have them overlap. Continue closing as many tortellini as you can as quickly as possible. If the edges start to get dry on the waiting squares, you can use a spray bottle to dampen them slightly.
If you have never made this before, I would roll out half of your dough first and tackle that half, then roll out the second half. Less is more so you don’t dry out the dough.
Place your broth to heat, season to taste with salt. Cook the tortellini in the broth, and plate with additional Parmigiano Reggiano. If you don’t cook all the tortellini, you can also place them on a baking tray to freeze. Once they are frozen, move them to a freezer bag, and add them to boiling stock when you’re ready to have them.
