Italy Main – Mushroom Tortellini

For the main course from Italy, it had to be pasta! In an effort to improve our cooking abilities, we decided to make the pasta from scratch — and went for tortellini with a mushroom and ricotta filling.

The pasta dough was made from 00 flour and egg yolks, kneaded until silky smooth and rested for 30 minutes before rolling. We used a rolling pin rather than a pasta machine, which required some elbow grease but gave a great result!

The filling was a simple sauté of mushrooms with garlic, combined with ricotta and seasoning once cooled. The key is to cook the mushrooms until all the moisture has evaporated — a wet filling will make the pasta soggy.

Shaping the tortellini was the most fiddly part — small circles of pasta were cut, a small amount of filling placed in the centre, folded into a half moon and then the two corners pinched together around the finger to form the classic tortellini ring shape.

These were boiled for just a couple of minutes then served with a simple brown butter and sage sauce, topped with plenty of Parmesan.

Making fresh pasta is genuinely very satisfying and the results speak for themselves! We’d highly recommend giving it a go on a lazy weekend.

Let us know how you get on!