Tortelli di zucca - Pumpkin filled pasta

Hand made pasta, again. Since pumpkin is in season, I thought I’d prepare Tortelli di zucca – Pumpkin filled tortelli, a typical dish from Northern Italy and definitely one of my favorites.

Tortelli di zucca

For the pasta dough:
300 g all purpose flour
3 medium eggs

For the filling:
500 g baked pumpkin
80 g finely ground amaretto cookies
100 g grated Parmigiano Reggiano
nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste

Prepare the pasta: mix eggs and flour and knead until you get a smooth dough. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate.

Prepare the filling: sieve the baked pumpkin to get a nice texture. Mix together with the ground amaretto cookies and the grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Add salt and pepper to taste and a little grated nutmeg.

Assemble the tortelli: Roll out the dough, either with a rolling pin or with a pasta roller until the desired thickness. I like it rather thin, so that the pasta doesn’t overpower the filling. Cut out squares from the pasta, put a little filling on top of each square and form the tortelli, making sure that you press well at the edges to prevent the filling from coming out of the pasta dough when cooking.

Cook the tortelli: Fill a large pan with water and bring it to the boil. Add salt. Drop in the tortelli and cook them for a couple minutes max after they’ve resurfaced – use a skimmer to take them out of the boiling water and put them straight in a pan with some butter and some sage leaves. Sauté them and serve immediately.

Note: Some of you might have noticed that the shape of the tortellli is not the classical one – if there is such a thing. That’s because I was preparing another kind with a different filling and the two different shapes helped me tell the two types apart.