Veal and Parmesan Tortellonis with Spicy Sage Butter Sauce

Yes, yes, double YES! These little, but not so little, scrumptious morsels will indefinitely get you laid, if not attention. Want to impress your boyfriend/girlfriend? Want to impress you family? Here you go, you can thank me later!

This is the perfect date night meal, where you can both make these tortellonis together. From the basic pasta dough, to the filling, to forming the tortellonis to the simple spicy sage sauce, this will blow your mind on how easy this is to make!

Tortellonis are a larger version of tortellinis which are a stuffed pasta that are shaped like pillow rings. Tortellonis are generally 1 to 2 inches in size. They are a staple of Italian cuisine, and a brother to ravioli. From cheeses to meats to veggies, you can stuff these bad boys with just about anything. The pasta is made by placing the filling in the center of cut out circles and then folding them into tubes to form rings. The center holes of the rings are wound tightly, but can sometimes be small or unnoticeable. The pouch is then sealed with egg wash, frozen, or ready to be boiled and eaten immediately.

I chose to use ground veal in the filling, because it has a milder, lean flavor and low amounts of saturated fat. Its texture is very tender. I paired the veal with onions, garlic, parmesan cheese, and fresh parsley. I only used a few ingredients to compliment the meat, but not to overpower. Parmesan cheese is a distinctively salty, slightly granular cheese that adds flavor and texture to the filling. The parsley adds this beautiful green vibrant color, while the onions adds a hint of sweetness. The garlic plays its usual accompanying role. An Italian restaurant in Chelsea in NYC, Giovanni Ranna Pastificio & Cucina, inspired this dish.

I am also a huge fan of spice, so I paired the tortellonis with a spicy sage butter sauce that can be prepped and prepared in less than 3 minutes. Sage is an herb that has a pungent, mildly astringent, slightly bitter to peppery flavor that accents the mildness of the veal. I used three spices in this sauce including red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, and paprika. The red pepper flakes are hot, dried bits of chile peppers that adds heat to the sauce. The cayenne pepper adds a zesty kick.

Paprika is a red spice made from dried bell peppers. It does not necessarily add heat, because bell peppers are sweet. Therefore, it adds sweetness and color. Start by browning the unsalted butter and then add the sage so that its oils can infuse into the hot butter. Finish with the spices and then remove from heat. Simple! The dish sounds a lot fancier than it actually is to produce. Treat yourself and the ones you love!

Learn how to make Fresh basic pasta dough here

Watch the Tortelloni Tutorial here

Purchase biscuit cutters to cut your circles here

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Homemade Bow-tie Pasta with Pomodoro Sauce

Also known as farfalle, it is the Italian word for bow-tie pasta. Farfalle translates to the word "butterflies," which is exactly what these little critters look like. Bow-tie pasta is fantastic when it comes to mopping up sauces and cheese. The pasta is well suited for tomato and cream sauces, although it can be used for others as well. It also holds its shape really well when baked in casseroles.

Living in Chicago for 11 years, I was surrounded by a plethora of wonderful Italian restaurants that delivered. One of my favorite restaurants was 'Go Roma,' which made and delivered the most insanely yummy bow-tie pasta with an amazingly olive oily Pomodoro sauce. Everyone I have ever introduced to this, has enjoyed it just as much as I have.

There is a noticeably difference in fresh pasta than boxed pasta. Fresh pasta gives you that eggy satiating taste that I have a hard time finding in boxed store-bought pasta. Once you establish the perfect pasta dough recipe, it is so easy to prepare. And, this pasta is not limited to just one sauce! Pair it with anything that gets you excited.

Pomodoro sauce is typically prepared with olive oil (good olive oil), fresh or canned tomatoes, basil, and other ingredients. My "other ingredients" include an overwhelming amount of fresh garlic, carrots, dried oregano, and a parmesan cheese rind. If you decide you want to use fresh plum tomatoes instead of canned tomatoes, you will need to blanch and shock the tomatoes and proceed to peel them. Roma tomatoes work the best in this case, because they have less seed compartments, so you won't need to remove the center.

Pomodoro means "tomato" in Italian. It is similar to a marinara sauce, but it uses olive oil as the base rather than a chicken stock. Pomodoro sauce is much thicker than a marinara, but still quite liquidy (because of the olive oil) with fewer chunks. Why exactly are we using carrots, you ask? Well, its either carrots or granulated sugar. You want to start eating healthier, right? Right! Carrots are a great substitute for sugar, because they add an element of sweetness to the sauce and gives it some flavor depth, while they deacidify the tomatoes. The basil presents an initial subtle peppery flavor that evolves into a slightly sweet anise flavor as it cooks. It is best to add the basil towards the end of the cooking process (if it is a long process), because the oils in this herb activate the flavors and aromas, which hit their peak quickly, delivering an immense amount of FLAVA. However, 45 minutes is short enough where you can add the fresh herbs towards the beginning to middle stages of the process. And, while we are skipping the sugar, we can also skip the salt! I add the rind of parmesan cheese, which adds a salty flavor to the sauce. But, if you must, you can add a bit of kosher salt to the sauce as well. Dried oregano is incredible in the sense that it is more flavorful than any other herb when its dried than fresh. It adds a comforting, familiar, slightly bitter taste to the sauce.

This is a great week night dinner, because it is intended to be a quick light dish, rather than heavy. It also cooks up in less than an hour! It is great to make with the kiddies too! I have made pasta with my 7-year-old sister before and not only does she love cutting out the shapes, but she really develops an appreciation for food. It's definitely a lot less fights at the dinner table when you get the kids involved in the cooking process. I have one of the pickiest sisters in the world, so I am living proof. Ciao!

Learn how to make my fresh homemade pasta dough here.
Watch the Tutorial for this recipe here
Want the pasta and ravioli wheel I use in this recipe? Purchase it here 
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The Perfect Pasta Dough

In my opinion, there are only four ingredients needed to make fresh pasta dough and that is flour, whole eggs, egg yolks, and kosher salt.

My experience making pasta dough in culinary school wasn't very pretty. I was under an impeccable amount of pressure and I really didn't understand the concept of making fresh pasta. I had always thought I was a student of visual, but it was not until my time after culinary school where I became a student of both visual and research. My externship was spent working for a huge television production company, where I spent my time working with producers in pre-production for cooking shows. My job was to research talking points for these shows, as in why they would use ingredients, the facts and the reasoning behind everything in the recipe, and why a recipe works or why it doesn't work. Having gained the basic concepts and fundamentals in culinary school, I was now beginning to understand why and able to apply my knowledge to action. Flash back to my final exams when I made fresh fettuccine and it came out mushy. I thought I had made a perfect pasta dough! Turns out I did not, and here is why...

The first and foremost thing you need to know are the ingredients used in fresh pasta dough. There is a substantial difference in fresh pasta to store-bought dry pasta. Store-bought pasta is made from the combination of semolina flour and water, where as Fresh pasta dough is made of the combination of flour and water, and the water is usually provided through the use of eggs (the whites in eggs are made up of 90% water). So, there is your difference, one is made up of eggs and the other is not.
Knowing the difference between each type of flour is also extremely important. Semolina flour is the highest in gluten and it is made from durum wheat, which is the hardest type of wheat grown. Semolina adds a heartiness and a rougher texture to the noodles that help sauces cling better."00" flour is also high in gluten. It is finely milled, resulting in a powdery texture. This can yield even silkier noodles than other flours. Some people like to make noodles using both semolina and "00" flour. You get the best of both worlds! However, if you are inexperienced in making noodles, I would recommend using the good ole handy dandy, located in your pantry, all-purpose flour! All-purpose flour is a blend of hard and soft wheat. It may come in bleached or unbleached form, and basically it is what is readily available. Unbleached is the form I usually use, because it is bleached naturally not chemically (like bleached is).

What's next you ask? Eggs! Eggs! Eggs! This is an element that is not included in store-bought dry noodles. Fresh pasta is praised for its eggy flavor and yellow hue! The more egg yolks you use, the more yellow your noodles will be. Yellow noodles are made with a combination of whole eggs and egg yolks. Whiter noodles can be made up of either egg whites or whole eggs (no so much just egg yolks).  I prefer to use two eggs yolks to every whole egg used.

The last and most debated ingredient that is important when making pasta dough is salt! Adding salt creates an even better flavor to the dough. I like to use kosher salt, but you can use iodized salt as well. I just would not recommend using sea salt, because it prevents the dough from developing a silky-smooth texture. And, so there you have it! The best possible option of ingredients to easily create a fresh pasta dough: AP flour, whole eggs, egg yolks, and kosher salt.

Now, here is where I made the crucial mistake in culinary school, I used olive oil. A lot of my chef teachers actually instructed us to do this. Adding olive oil can make the dough soft and mushy, resulting in less elastic noodles. It also makes it extremely challenging to mix and knead the dough with this addition. Do yourself a favor and stay away from olive oil. If you want to add that particular flavor to your pasta, put some olive oil in your boiling water when cooking. The only time you should use olive oil when cooking pasta is for fresh pasta, and that is because eggs are used and can sometimes stick together when boiling. This does not apply to store-bought dry pasta (because they do not use eggs.) Get it? Got it? Good!

Ok, so now we have discovered our ingredients and why to use them. So, how do we use them? Fantastic question!  Believe it or not, combining this dough is beyond simple. If you want to be an old-fashioned Italian (who love to take their time) you can make a well with your ingredients and combine them together.

Or, if you are an American, like I am, that does not have a lot of time on her hands, you can combine all of your ingredients in a food processor or a stand mixer with a hook attachment and mix the dough on low speed until it combines into a ball. Well, that took all about 5 seconds. Now what?

Now we knead. Kneading is the process of working the moistened flour into the dough with the palms of your hands, adding strength, and smoothness to the final product. The perfect amount of time to knead your dough is 10 minutes. Under-kneading won't provide you with the same snappy spring, and the ingredients won't be as well incorporated. Do NOT skip this step and don't cut your time short. 10 minutes is PERFECT.

Time to rest...your dough that is. Resting allows the flour to continue to hydrate, so if your dough feels a little dry before you wrap the ball of dough tightly in plastic wrap, SUPER!! That is what you want. If the ball of dough feels a little wet, add a little more flour. And when I say a little, I mean a little. Add 1 tablespoon of flour at a time. You don't want to dry the dough out. REFRAIN from adding water, though. ABSOLUTELY NEVER add water unless your dough will literally not hold together. The recipe I will l provide you will ABSOLUTELY ENSURE that this problem does not occur. Resting also allows for the gluten to relax, so the dough won't be too elastic and you will be able to roll it out. 30 minutes is the ideal amount of time to rest the dough! Leave it at room temperature, unless you are going to roll the dough at a much later time (I'm talking hours or days). Then, refrigerate.

I would highly recommend getting yourself a pasta maker. Although it is not mandatory, it sure makes your life a heck of a lot of easier! Start by cutting the dough in half (for 2 servings) and cutting it into quarters (for 4 servings). Use either a half or a quarter and wrap the rest of the dough tightly so it does not dry out. Use a rolling pin to roll your dough out slightly so it fits through the first setting of the pasta maker. Setting "1" makes a thicker sheet, whereas setting "7" makes for a much thinner sheet of pasta. Send the dough through setting "1" and setting "2" about one to two times for each setting. It is now time to laminate your dough. The word laminate is a universal word for different uses. It is a technique of manufacturing a material (in this case, pasta dough) in multiple layers, so that the material achieves improved strength, stability, and appearance. In the world of pasta, you are going to fold the dough into a smaller package at this point, roll it out with your rolling pin, and then feed it back through setting "1" one to times times, and then setting "2" one to times times. Repeat. The dough becomes more sturdy and manageable when laminated at least twice. The pasta will have better texture and a more supple bite! Proceed on to send your dough through settings "3" through "6," if you are making a regular noodle. Pass the sheet of pasta through "3" through "7" when making a stuffed pasta shell. Pick an attachment, any attachment, and don't let me see it. Well, you catch my drift. This is the fun part! Send your sheets of pasta through a fettuccine attachment or a spaghetti attachment or proceed on to cut your own thick slices of pappardelle. Aw, hell you can even make raviolis and tortellinis with those beautiful hands of yours. The list goes on and on. Amazon.com offers all sorts of affordable pasta-making tools to help you achieve your vision.

Once you have created that perfect pasta, cook it up! Bring heavily salted water with a splash of olive oil to a boil and cook the fresh pasta for 90 seconds, A.k.a. 1 1/2 minutes. Oh yes, fresh pasta cooks very VERY quickly, so be careful not to overcook it. Cooking times:

Fresh Pasta (no drying or freezing): 1 1/2 minutes
Fresh Pasta; frozen: 1 1/2 minutes (for raviolis and tortellinis, i like a bit of a bite) and 3 minutes for noodles
Fresh Pasta, air dried: 4 to 6 minutes

If you want to freeze your pasta for another day. Place the uncooked pasta on a sheet pan with parchment paper or a silpat and put it in the freezer for 15 minutes. Then, transfer the pasta into air tight containers or plastic bags and back into the freezer until further use. Want to dry your pasta? Alright, fine. You can purchase a pasta dryer OR you can use plastic hangers to hang dry in a single layer for 12 to 24 hours. Humidity can be your enemy in this case. Make sure the pasta is hung dry in a dry place to avoid molding. Once the pasta is completely dry, transfer noodles to airtight container. I wouldn't recommend doing this for pasta stuffed with cheeses and meat.

I hope this helps clear up all of your fears of making fresh pasta, because it really is a beautiful thing. And, once you pop, the fun don't stop. Seriously...

Keep Cooking,

Kim

(WILL ATTACH MY RECIPE)

Fun Pasta Things:
Pasta Maker with attachments
Scale to weigh out your flour
Ravioli and bow-tie pasta wheel
Ravioli Maker
Use to make Tortellini, ravioli, or tortelloni