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Happy Mother’s Day!
This week little Al and I have invented a very special pasta for our very favourite person. We’d be lost without this lovely thing. She’s the backbone of the house, knows us better than we know ourselves, and has effortlessly become the greatest Mamma of all time. When we talk about sitting down to pasta with the family, she is the family.
And to my own Ma, little Al’s Nonna, I’ll never be able to repay you for everything that you’ve given me. We’ve been on opposite sides of the country for so long now, but you’re always in my thoughts.
Now to pasta. Both of these women know well that I enjoy generating a bit of controversy. In fact, whether they’ll admit it or not, they’ve always encouraged that in me. So here we are, red dragonfruit tortelli with ricotta and lemon filling.
The Story
Last week little Al and I went out on a mission gathering unusual things to try mixing into our pasta dough. We picked up a range of powdered foods to use for colour and flavour, like chlorella and activated charcoal, but perhaps most controversially we bought some red dragonfruit (pink pitaya) powder. Now hear me out: two points. Firstly, if it’s done with care and consideration, fruit can always be subtly added into savoury dishes, even if it’s not a traditional pairing. Secondly, this is our blog, and we’ll do what we want.
Anyway, I’m going to say up front that I hadn’t expected this to be as good as it was. There it is, I’ve said it. To be honest, I would have denied the entire culinary experiment if it had turned out less than amazing, but whatever. Tossed through our brown butter with pink peppercorns and lemon thyme, this was freaking delicious.
We experimented with various amounts of red dragonfruit powder before settling on our preferred ratio to flour. Adding more gave it a fantastic deep purple colour, but the eventual winner for us was a more subtly flavoured pink dough.
A crack of black pepper in the filling perfectly offset that little bit of fruitiness, and paired with our simple sauce of brown butter and pink peppercorns, we had a new dish worth blogging about!
The Pasta
I don’t normally recommend a food processor for pasta, unless you’re in a tearing hurry, but I found that the dragonfruit powder clumped a bit as the dough came together. If you give everything a blitz for a minute you should get a beautifully uniform dough, with tiny dark flecks through it. Of course, you can easily do this by hand – when I tested it out I just found that that the incorporation of ingredients required a little more attention. Regardless of whether you use a food processor or not, give it the usual 10 minutes of vigorous kneading, and then bag it up to prevent drying as it rests for 30 minutes.
While the dough’s hanging out, mix all of those filling ingredients together with a fork, just like nonna used to do. You’ll still have texture from the lemon zest, but there shouldn’t be any ricotta lumps. Stick it in a piping bag with a medium-sized tip, or ready a teaspoon (also like nonna, whose aversion to technology is starting to become obvious now with hindsight).
Next, cut your dough up into 2-4 pieces, depending on how fast you think you can work filling and folding. Again, store what you’re not working on in an airtight container. If you’re using a pasta machine, pass it through on the thickest setting a few times, folding over itself in between passes. Then step it incrementally through to a setting of 7.
Use a fluted cutter to form squares of about 60mm, and give them all a pea sized dollop of filling. It should be a little round ball that takes up the inner ninth of the square. Then to shape fold one edge over the filling to meet its opposite. Press down lightly to seal, and then gently seal the two shorter edges, making sure that you squeeze out any air as you go. Now turn the frilled edges slightly upwards, and give it a poke in the centre of the smooth sealed edge to form a hollow in the bulge caused by the filling. Bring the short edges around the hollow to slightly overlap with each other, and press firmly to seal and complete the tortello.
Transfer these guys straight on to baking paper lined trays, and refrigerate for up to a day. Keeping them uncovered overnight will actually add a little bite to the cooked pasta, so if you have the time, make them the day before.
We whipped up a quick sauce of brown butter and pink peppercorns to go with our tortelli, topping them with some little edible viola flowers. And we highly recommend it! Otherwise, get creative and let us know how it goes.
To all of the mamme, nonne, and bisnonne out there, buona festa della mamma! To everyone else, give your mum a hug or a call, or if you can’t do that, just remember her and all that she’s given you.
And buon appetito!
– Al & Al.
Equipment
- Pasta roller and cutter (if not using a rolling pin and knife)
- Kitchenaid pasta roller and cutter attachment (optional, instead of manual cutter or rolling pin)
- Food processor
- Fluted pastry/pasta cutting wheel
- Piping bag with medium round tip (alternatively, you can use a teaspoon)
Ingredients
Dough
- 100 g 00 flour
- 50 g durum semolina
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2-2 tsp pink pitaya powder (dragonfruit powder)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tbsp olive oil
Filling
- 150 g ricotta
- zest of one lemon
- 1 tsp of black pepper cracked
- 1/2 egg
- salt to season
Instructions
- Use a food processor to combine the dry ingredients, then gradually add the wet. Run for approximately one minute, or until the dough begins to hold together as one ball. Alternatively, if you don't have a food processor, form a well of the dry ingredients with the wet in the centre, and gradually mix the dry into this using a fork. A food processor will just ensure that the pitaya doesn't clump as the ingredients combine (and speed things along), but is not necessary if you take extra care when kneading.
- Knead by hand for 10 minutes, vigorously. Dough should be soft but not stick to your hands or the kneading surface. If it does stick, add flour in teaspoon increments, fully incorporating before reassessing moisture levels.
- Cover dough with cling wrap or store in an air tight container; leave to rest for 30 minutes away from direct sunlight or heat.
- Prepare the filling by mixing all filling ingredients together using a fork, until it has a smooth consistency without any lumps of ricotta.
- Cut the dough into two pieces or, if scaling the recipe, two pieces per approximately 150g of flour used. Working with one piece at a time (returning the remainder of the dough to an air tight container) pass it through the pasta machine at the thickest setting 3-4 times. If working with a rolling pin, knead it firmly for a few minutes before beginning to roll it out.
- Gradually step up through the thicknesses, one at a time, or roll to desired thickness. The ideal setting for this pasta on a manual machine is 7.
- Cut into squares of approximately 60mm using a fluted pasta cutting wheel. Note that if you're preparing a large amount, or are unsure of how quickly you'll work, then progress using only one sheet at a time with the rest remaining covered. They will dry out quickly and become increasingly difficult to fold.
- Use a piping bag to squeeze a small amount of filling into the centre of each square, roughly the size of a large pea, filling the centre ninth of the square.
- To shape, first fold one edge over the filling to meet its opposite edge. Press down lightly to seal, and then gently seal the two shorter edges, making sure that you squeeze out any air as you go. Now turn the frilled edges slightly upwards, and give it a poke in the centre of the smooth sealed edge to form a hollow in the bulge caused by the filling. Bring the short edges around the hollow to slightly overlap with each other, and press firmly to seal and complete the tortello.
- Transfer to baking paper lined trays, and refigerate for up to one day. Alternatively, you can freeze them, but you may find that the ricotta takes on a grainier texture.
- To cook, drop into a large pot of boiling water (with a pinch of salt), and boil until no white is visible in the dough when biting or cutting into the pasta's thickest section. If you're looking for the perfect sauce to pair it with, try our brown butter with pink peppercorns and lemon thyme!
Gorgeous colours, cute shapes, and subtle but interesting flavours! Would never have thought dragonfruit would make a good pasta ingredient. Definitely a successful experiment 🙂
Thank you 😊 glad that you enjoyed them! It was fun breaking with tradition (and hopefully we didn’t offend too many nonnas in the process).
So beautiful!
Que belleza!
Oh thank you so much! This was one of our first recipe, but still a favourite 🙂