Pumpkin tortelli with sage and walnut butter
Freshly homemade pasta always taste the best and it is enhanced here with a pumpkin and ricotta filling and a rich, nutty butter sauce.
Ingredients
For the filling
- 1 small cooking pumpkin (not the carving kind, approximately 500g/1lb 4oz cooked weight), cut into large wedges with skin left on
- olive oil, for drizzling
- 100²µ/3½´Ç³ú ricotta
- 50g/1¾oz freshly grated Parmesan, plus extra to serve
- 20g/¾oz mustard fruits or stem ginger, finely chopped
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the pasta dough
- 300g/10½oz ‘00’ flour or strong white flour, plus extra for kneading
- 3 free-range eggs, plus 2 free-range eggs, beaten (for sealing the dough)
For the butter
Method
To make the filling, preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Take a large piece of kitchen foil, big enough to completely contain the pumpkin, and put the wedges inside.
Drizzle the pumpkin with the oil and season with salt and pepper. Add a couple of tablespoons of water and seal up the foil parcel. Place on a baking tray and roast in the oven for 45 minutes or until soft. Leave to cool, then scrape the pumpkin from the skin and set aside.
To make the pasta dough, place the flour in a bowl and crack the eggs into the bowl. Mix until incorporated.
Start to knead in the bowl until the dough comes together, then tip onto a work surface and continue kneading for 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and there are no white specks of flour visible. If the dough feels sticky, knead in a small amount of extra flour. Wrap the dough in kitchen foil and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, mash the pumpkin roughly with a fork to remove any lumps. Stir in the ricotta until combined. Add the Parmesan, then stir in the mustard fruits until evenly combined.
Roll out the pasta dough using a pasta machine. Starting on the widest setting, feed the dough through the machine, narrowing the setting each time until it reaches the second-to-last thinnest setting and the dough is thin and supple.
Cut each sheet of pasta into sections that are about 50cm/20in long. On each section, spoon teaspoons of filling in a line that is 2.5cm/1in from the long edge of the pasta section and leaving a generous thumb-width gap between each teaspoon of filling.
Brush all the exposed dough with the beaten egg then fold the pasta onto itself, trapping the filling inside. Use a hooked finger to press around the mound of filling, removing any air gaps and sealing the pasta together. Use a fluted pasta wheel to cut the pasta into individual pieces, then neaten the edges if necessary.
Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil and simmer the tortelli for 4–5 minutes or until the pasta parcels rise to the surface. Drain thoroughly, reserving some of the cooking water.
To make the butter, melt the butter in a frying pan and cook the walnuts and sage for a couple of minutes until the butter has infused. Add the tortelli to the butter. If it looks at all dry, add a couple of tablespoons of cooking water to the pan to loosen.
Divide the tortelli between plates and top with Parmesan. Serve immediately.
Recipe Tips
The tortelli can now be frozen for up to 1 month. Freeze on baking trays until solid then portion into freezer bags until ready to cook. The pasta can be cooked straight from frozen.
