Vegetarian tortellini

 According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country), around 10% of the Italians, 12% of British and 3% of Polish people are vegetarians.
I am vegetarian myself, but most of my friends and relatives aren't. Working for restaurants, I often have to deal with meat and fish. Although I am not happy about it, I treat the matter with the utmost respect. I no longer want to convince people into becoming vegetarians, choice is personal.

We can make the stuffing for tortellini not only from meat, but also from pulses and other vegetables.
Legumes are high in proteins and carbohydrates. They are easy to digest and they taste good, too.

Today I want to propose you a way to make your vegetarian tortellini with a lentils' filling.

For the dough, follow the instructions I gave you yesterday.

We can use either canned or dried lentils. The latter option will be longer to make, but the taste will definitely be better.
Yield, 4-6 servings.

• 200gr dried lentils OR 1 can processed ones
• 1 onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 branch of celery
• 2 spoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 100ml blended peeled tomatoes
• salt
• pepper
• rosemary
• breadcrumbs

Here are the instructions.

Soak the dried lentils overnight in cold water. A couple of hours is usually enough for them to adsorb the necessary water, but a longer time will ensure that all the grains have been re-hydrated.
 
Cut the onion, the carrot and the celery in brunoise. Stir fry until soft. Add 300ml of water, the blended tomatoes, pepper, the rosemary and the lentils.
Bring to a boil and then lower the fire. Cook for 30 minutes or until soft.
Add the salt ONLY at the end of the cooking time to ensure the lentils' skin don't harden.
Drain and blend.
If the stuffing is too wet, add breadcrumbs until you get a paste that can be worked by hands.

If you used canned lentils, you can just drain them and stir fry with onion, celery and carrot. Then follow the instructions above.

For the broth, boil one carrot, one onion and some celery in salted water.