Recipe: Ricotta Spinach filled Tortellini on a bed of Mushrooms

I happened to attend the BNLF - Blog Now Live Forever Conference earlier this month. As a part of redefining an experience of a conference, hosts IndiBlogger asked the talented Chef Kumar of Trendz restaurant of The Lalit to conduct a special MasterClass on an Italian cuisine dish.

Yours truly was invited to this class and here's the Italian masterpiece that we learnt:

Ricotta Spinach Filled Tortellini on a bed of mushrooms

Serves: 1

Ingredients: 

25 gm Ricotta Cheese

50 gm Baby Spinach

50 gm Farina Flour 00'

15 gm Semolina

1 Egg

5 ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)

50 gm Button Mushrooms

25 gm onion

25 gm Asparagus

5 gm Sage butter

10 gm Sun-dried Tomatoes

10 gm Pine nuts

1 cherry tomato

Chives for garnish

Salt to taste

Cracked black pepper for seasoning

1 whisked egg as pasta sealing agent

Method:

For the tortellini pasta:

Make a soft pasta dough using the Farina flour, whole egg, salt, olive oil. Keep aside for resting the dough. 

Sheet the pasta using a pasta maker. Make  the pasta sheet with thickness up to 1.5 mm.

For the pasta filling:

Make a mixture of the ricotta cheese and chopped spinach for the filling.

Kitchen Secret: Grate some nutmeg to decrease the bitterness of the spinach

Watch the video of Chef Kumar explaining the secret of using Nutmeg:

Shaping the Tortellini:

Lay the sheet of pasta flat. Use a cutter to cut circles into the sheet of pasta.

Add a spoonful of the spinach filling into the centre of the pasta circle like in the video:

 

Brush some egg around the edges of the pasta circle and seal the pasta in half. The egg acts as a sealing agent.

Tip: (If want to skip eggs, you can use potato starch as the sealing agent)

Now, the crucial step. Fold the edges of the tortellini to make the shape like so. Watch the next video that explains this step in detail:

Blanch the spinach filled pasta in salted water or in a steamer for 8 minutes.

For the bed of mushrooms:

In a pan, heat EVOO. Add chopped onions and chopped mushrooms. Arrange it on a plate as the base for pasta. In the video, the chef explains how the mushrooms are prepared:

For the sauce:.

In another pan, saute sage butter, chopped onion, garlic till translucent. Then add chopped sun-dried tomato and chopped pine nuts. Garnish with chopped parsley and fresh sage,

Toss the blanched pasta in the sauce.

Plating:

Arrange the pasta on the plate with the bed of mushrooms.

Use the butter poached asparagus and balsamic reduction as a garnish along with chopped chives and sun-dried tomatoes.

Watch the video on how to plate:

On tasting it, I could feel the crunch of mushrooms along with the tangy-ness of the sun-dried tomatoes. Both go well with the velvety ricotta cheese spinach filling in the pasta.

What do you think of this recipe?