Gluten-free tortellini?

The first time I tried to deal with rice flour, some of the dough got stuck to the rolling pin and the day after the latter was bent forever. I could never use it again.

This is a chronicle of a partial success or that of a partial failure. But we must see the half glass full, right?

My mistake was to use cold water, the first time. I got something in between a rock and wet sand.
Today the water was boiling hot and the flour, although without gluten, managed to become somewhat sticky. I have been reading many recipes about Chinese dumplings and somewhere in the way I got this information.
I'm not sure about the cemical process, I guess the starch becomes somehow a gel and gets easier to be worked.

Yield: max 2 servings (it was an experiment!)

For the dough, I used the following:

• 1 cup of rice flour
• 1 spoon of potato starch
• 1 spoon of sunflower oil
• 1 pinch salt
• 4/5 of a cup of boiling water

Mix the flours, salt and oil in a bowl with a fork. Then pour the water. Stir using the fork, unless you want to spend some time in the hospital with 3rd degree burns.
Once you get a somewhat sticky mass, you can try and use your hands. It will be warm.
Make a ball and cover with plastic foil to avoid it dries.

For the stuffing, I used the vegan one given previously.

Dust the board and, with a rolling pin, make a sheet and cut in 3cm squares.

The dough is very delicate. I broke it straight away in the middle.
I collected the bits around the squares and made another ball, which I worked again with the rolling pin. This time, it was cold and more resistant.
So, make sure the dough has got cold before you make the sheet.
6/10 of a millimeter, as required for traditional tortellini, was too thin a thickness. I managed to close them, but I had less problems with a part that was a couple of millimeters. 

The tortellini I made look extremely delicate on the board. I wonder how to cook them. I guess steaming them would not destroy their delicate skin, or maybe they could be deep-fried. I wonder what happens in the broth.

Next time, I will be more precise.

Vegan tortellini

In structural semiotics there is a very important distinction between variants and invariants, as stated by L. Hjelmslev.
The analysis of a text can sometimes be hard when we want to determine the importance of a given expression and one tool is to change one of its terms in order to understand what happens to the meaning of the text itself. When we have commutation, that is a change in the meaning of the given text, that term is an invariant. Otherwise, we have a substitution, a variant.
More specifically, a variant can be free, leading to variations or localized, giving us varieties.

Making order in the world of Italian pasta is a true brainteaser, as each region, if not each city, has its own kind of recipe and shape and many times they share the same name.
The question is: what is a tortellino? What a tortellone?

The recipe for the stuffing of bolognese tortellini has been deposited and it's that I gave you on the first article. So it should be clear that true tortellini are only those made following those rules. At the same time, each shop and each family that produces them in the Bologna and Modena area has its own recipe. They are, in fact, varietes. They always contain Parma ham, Mortadella, Parmigiano Reggiano, nutmeg and eggs. And yet, the proportions vary even greatly.

I took the freedom to call the other recipes given as tortellini, although this approach would not really be orthodox. They are, in fact, variations as they are free interpretations of the concept of tortellini.

In Italy, outside of Bologna and Modena, you can find many shops that sell "tortellini" although the size, the shape and the stuffing are completely different from the traditional ones. Because the concept of tortellini is less rooted. That is, as L. Hjelmslev would put it, because the text has been cut differently and it now includes a wider range of dialects.

To make a long story short, just augment the width and thickness of tagliatelle (i.e. dimensions) and they are no longer perceived as such: they have become pappardelle. Cut a square of pasta sheet 6cm wide (instead of 3cm) and put the required stuffing and you get a tortellone instead of a tortellino. These are commutations that explain what an invariant is.

From now on, then, I will take as primary characters to name pasta the shape and the size, leaving aside the composition of the dough and that of the stuffing, when present.

I started with this introduction because today I present a recipe for vegan tortellini, so not only is the stuffing completely different from the original one, but also the dough falls "outside of the rule". Sfoglia bolognese requires one egg every 100gr of flour, as stated previously. Taking the eggs away doesn't give us a strictly traditional product, but I need to name somehow what I make.
As the desinence "-ino" means small, and the etymology of "tortello/ino" seems to some take origin from the act of the torsion given to the dough, I will call them tortellini.
This blog is meant for people outside of Italy, so the interpreting community has a wider acceptance of what a tortellino is.

Yield: 2-3 servings.

Here's the recipe for the dough:

• 150gr flour
• 70ml water
• 1 spoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 2gr curry powder

And here's for the stuffing:

• 1 can of red beans, drained 240gr
• 3 garlic cloves
• rosemary
• thyme

 Mix the beans with the other ingredients in a blender.

For the broth, you can use the vegetable version given before.

Fisherman's tortellini

We have seen so far two different stuffings for tortellini: with meat and vegetarian.
On the 24th of December, on Christmas' Eve, most of the people in Italy follow the tradition that forbids eating meat.
As I wanted to share with my relatives my love for pasta, I made for them an alternative recipe for the filling, based on fish.
For 4-6 servings, I used the following:

• 400gr of smoked salmon
• chive
• dill
• one spoon of capers

Took the skin away from the chunk of salmon and check there isn't any fishbone left.
Finely chop the herbs and the capers and amalgamate with the fish. The mix mustn't necessarily be smooth, but you could use a blender if you want to. I didn't because I wanted my guests to distinguish the different textures.
As for the previous recipes, this stuffing is to be used with a ball of dough made with 300gr of flour and 3 eggs.

For the broth:

• 2l water
• 1kg of fish (preferably non-fat) or discard from previous preparations
• 4 spoons of extra-virgin olive oil
• 100gr leek finely chopped
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• parsley
• 100ml white wine
• salt
• pepper in grains

Stir fry the onion, the leek and the garlic at low fire, then add the fish and brown for a couple of minutes. Add the wine and wait until the alcohol has fully evaporated.
Add the water and the remaining ingredients and let simmer for one hour at low fire.
Filter the broth.

Bring to a boil and pour the tortellini.
Enjoy!

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.

Tortellini!

Hello! I'm Davide and I work as sfoglino. My job is to make pasta and I'd like to share with you my experience and passion.

 Everybody knows what spaghetti, tagliatelle and ravioli are. But could you make them yourself at home, starting from scratch? The purpose of this blog is toi help you doing it.

 Christmas has just finished and probably the most of you are on a diet to recover from all the food you ate, but maybe in a couple of weeks you'll feel hungry again and want to have a treat for your bellies. After all, it's winter!

Here's what I made for my family last week: tortellini.

Legend wants that they were invented by a sfoglino in Castelfranco (between Bologna and Modena) who had seen Venus naked. As he couldn't forget the bauty of her, he made this pasta that resembles her navel.

We start from the dough.I follow the traditional recipe from Bologna, that forbids anything else than flour and eggs. In other regions of Italy the ingredients may vary, so you could put water, oil, salt.
For each 100gr of flour there's one egg. For 4-6 people 300gr and 3 eggs will be enough provided that you make a thin layer.

 

 

After the kneading, the dough will look smooth and elastic. We make a ball and let it rest for twenty minutes. During this time the gluten will develop, giving the dough the necessary strength it needs to be worked.

Using a rolling pin, we make a foil as thin as we can in the shortest possible time, to avoid drying of pasta.

Finally, we cut the pasta in squares 3cm wide and put the stuffing on each of them.We fold each square to make a triangle, pressing on the sides to close the filling and wrap the tails around the finger.

You should make the stuffing the day before in order to develop the best possible taste.

The recipe for 4-6 people is the following:

•     50gr pork loin
•     10gr butter
•     100gr mortadella
•     75gr Parma ham
•     50gr grated Parmigiano Reggiano 36 months
•     1 egg
•     salt
•     nutmeg
•     white wine

Cook the pork meat in the butter for a few minutes at low fire. Add wine and salt. When you no longer smell the alcohol evaporating, take away from the stove.

Mince the meat with the other ingredients. Add the egg, salt and nutmeg and stir.

Put in the fridge, well covered so it doesn't dry.

Traditionally, tortellini are cooked in a broth made with pork, beef and chicken meat along with onion, celery and carrot (and some salt of course). Cover with water and put on a very low fire. The longer it cooks, the better the result.

 Once the broth is ready, filter it, pour the tortellini and wait until they start to float.

Serve hot.

Alternatively, you may just cook them in cream. But this would be considered as blasphemy by a truly bolognese...