Spinach Tortellini
Spinach Tortellini
Equipment
- Measuring Equipment (Scale/Teaspoon/Tablespoon/Cup)
- Pot
- Vegetable Steamer
- Stove Top
- Strainer
- Food Processor/Blender
- Pasta Maker/Rolling Pin
- Cutting Board
- Ravioli Stamp/Knife
Ingredients
- 170 Grams Spinach (5 ¾ Cups)
- 3 Eggs
- 256 Grams All Purpose Flour (9oz or 2 Cups)
- 1 Pinch Salt
Instructions
- Bring water to a boil and steam the spinach for 2minutes. Run under cold water to cool. Squeeze the spinach to remove as much moister as probable.
- Combine with eggs and puree in a food processer.
- Next, blend together the flour and salt in a food processor. When clumped in a big ball, remove and kneed for about five minute.
- If you don’t have a food processor, you do all the mixing by hand. Cut the spinach as finely as possible and whisk together with the eggs.
- Create a well of flour* on a table. Add the eggs to the center of the well. Using your hands, begin pushing the flour into the egg mixture. Keep doing this until the flour is well incorporated and in a stable ball. Continue kneading for another 5 minutes.
- Wrap in plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 15minutes.
- Cut into 5 or 6 pieces, lightly flour and run through the pasta maker. If you don’t have a pasta machine, you can roll the dough out with a pin on a floured surface. In either case, you want to get dough thickness to 3.175 MM (1/8 of an inch).
- Once it’s been rolled out to the proper thickness, use a square ravioli stamp to cut out square forms.
- Put a small bit filling, about 1 teaspoon worth,into the center. Fold the pasta over, so you’ll have a triangle shape.
- Use your finger and push down on the edge. You won’t need much force.
- Finally, wrap the far edges so they come together, making the final form, which looks like a crown or a ring.
- They can be frozen and kept for up to a year, or cooked the day of. If you’re not cooking immediately, put them into a lightly flowered air tight container and refrigerate until cooking. Wax paper will work well for separating layers.
- To cook, bring a pot of water with a pinch of salt to a boil. Gently place the tortellini in the pot and cook for 3-5 minutes.They will rise to the top when almost ready. After rising, I let them cook for an additional minute.
- Be careful not to overcrowd the pot. I always cook them in shifts.
Notes
Filling your Tortellini
Is there any other pasta that is more perfect than tortellini? The correct answer is no! They have the perfect ratio of filling to dough, allowing for all the subtle tastes locked within to be enjoyed. Unfortunately, they are quite hard to source in Japan. Necessity, after all, is the mother of invention.
Get Stuffed
When it comes to that perfect ratio of filling; there is almost an endless amount of possibilities, from the savory to the sweet. The simplest option is to fill your pasta with ricotta.
Make your own ricotta (recipe here), it’s easy.
If that’s too pedestrian for you, you can mix some spinach into your ricotta.
I love using a Pesto Filling (recipe here) that I learned in Florence, Italy.
Need some other ideas…
- You can experiment with other cheeses, or blends of cheeses.
- Nuts and meats are a great option. Beware of protruding chunks that can rip a hole in the pasta.
- Crabmeat
- Lobster
- Mushrooms
- Sausage
- Butternut Squash
- Feta & Olives
- Chicken and herbs
- Pumpkin
You get the idea.
A Warning About Vegetables
Most any vegetables used for your filling should be steamed. If you don’t have a steamer, convert a pot into a steamer by filling it with a base of water and then inserting a vegetable streamer or metal strainer.
or
Sauce
Although not a filling, you will need a sauce to compliment your dish. We could go through a whole other lists, but we’ll leave it simply at this; these tortellini will work with almost anything. A red or white sauce, or even something oil based. These are lovely in salad.
We highly recommend making our Pistachio Cream Sauce (recipe here).
Getting Your Tortellini into Shape
Getting the right shape of the tortellini might seem a little daunting if you’ve never done it before. I honestly had no idea how they were made until I took an Italian cooking course in Italy. What I discovered was they are incredibly easy to make. In fact, far easier than making ravioli.
It comes down to cutting a square pasta shape out of your dough. You can do that however you see fit. If you have no equipment, you can just use a knife on a cutting board. You’ll get some variation in the size, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I personally find that appealing, as it’s a hallmark of something handmade and unique.
Tortellini & Ravioli Stamps
If you want to be more precise and/or take some of the needless work out of the process, you can pick up a square ravioli stamp.
Low quality stamps are cheap, but I don’t think they are worth it. They don’t cut well and can be a little frustrating.
We’ve recently upgraded to a super high quality copper brass stamp from Marcato. Marcato is an Italian based company that makes top quality cooking products that are renowned for their quality.
Check out review (coming in August).
For those of you in Japan, it’s far cheaper to order from the US have it shipped. If you’re curious, I can find a smaller version in Japan at double the price. Again, this is not a good deal.
If you’re not convinced that you need a high quality stamp, by all means pick up something cheaper. Marcato also has a nice stainless steel stamp for a fraction of the price.
Welcome to the Machine
Making most types of pasta can be fairly labor intensive. I’ve done it by hand more times than I can count, so I know how tiring it can be. Nothing really beats fresh pasta, so it’s worth the work. There’s no law that says you have to work hard to have great things.
There are so many machines that help take the work out of making pasta while keeping the fun in.
Having any kind of food processor will help immensely here, especially with blending the spinach into the eggs. A food processor can also be really helpful with combining the flour.
KitchenAid
If you a KitchenAid you throw on the dough hook and let the machine do all the kneading for you. Not a bad deal. The KitchenAid also has a pasta making attachment, which is a great add on. If you don’t have a KitchenAid, or you think the attachment is too expensive, you can always buy a hand cracked pasta maker. In fact, that’s what I’m using.
(This attachment appears to only be the roller, but it’s the only listing I could find. Honestly, it’s not that great of a price. You’d be much better off ordering from Amazon in the US and paying the international shipping.)
Be wary of 3rd party attachments for the KitchenAid. They are cheaper, but it’s a little doubtful if they will live up to the quality and durability of the authorized products.
Costco Japan (and US) also sells the KitchenAid Stand Mixer, and I would recommend getting it there.
Pasta Makers
Unfortunately, not all pasta makers are the same, so our settings are machine specific. However, if you’re using a Marcato Atlas 150 Pasta Machine, you would start on the 0 setting and work your way through to level 4 thickness. I’ve experimented with level 5, but found it was too thin, throwing off the pasta to filling ratio.
If you have a different machine, you’ll have to play around a little. You’ll find what works for you after you’ve done it once or twice. Just make sure you write down your notes. Trust me, you won’t remember.
If you are in the market for hand cranked pasta maker, the Marcato Atlas 150 Pasta Machine is a great machine. As already mentioned above, Marcato makes very high quality products, and the Atlas 150 is considered one of the best pasta machines on the market.
Surprisingly, the Marcato is not a bad deal in Japan. It’s actually a little cheaper than the US, which usually isn’t the case.
Nada sings about being left cold by a love, but certainly these tortellini won’t leave you feeling cold or unloved.