Michtortelli alla Zucca _____AKA The Pumpkin invasion part ZWEI

The Pumpkin invasion part ZWEI

Ok, don’t worry, this blog is not turning into a “PUMPKIN BLOG” ....even if Halloween is shortly on its way ____ but I had some pumpkin remaining from my last post. So, taken by the “BIO” spirit of Berlin, I’ve decided to cook something new....something which would have taken me some time....a difficult dish, but extremely ITALIAN [as a friend of mine was pointing out a few evenings ago, it is not possible to scrap away your “italianity” by moving to a new country, learning a new language and starting a new lifestyle....so, just to please him]

This will be my first “tribute” to Italy, or at least, to the Italian Cuisine.

Two or three words about this dish.....it is impossible to give a perfect recipe for something like “Tortelli con la Zucca”, someone will always tell you that you are doing something wrong, ‘That’s better if you do it this or that way’, that ‘My Granny used to do this way and that way’, that ‘In the place where I live they use to put this and that into the filling’....usw

So, keep your boring and useless comments for you, that’s the way I do “Tortelli con la Zucca”.....and so I will call them “Michtortelli con la Zucca” ....

What do you need:

• 1 Kitchen
• An entire afternoon + evening [or a late afternoon and evening if you are a good cook]
• Spoons, forks and knives
• 2 big bowls
• 1 big-flat plate
• 1 pasta machine [or a rolling-pin if you are as good as Bree Van De Kamp...but by the end of the process you will certainly be a desperate housewife.....]
• Saucepan filled with boiling water

Ingredients:

For the filling:

• 300g Pumpkin
• 40g Amaretti cookies
• 2 tablespoons Honey mustard
• 1 teaspoon melted butter
• 40g Parmigiano Reggiano [so, don’t use Gouda or other abominable types of cheese]
• Salt and Pepper
• Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Cloves [trimmed]

For the Pasta:

• 200 g Plain Flour
• 2 Eggs

1. Boil the pumpkin [with its skin on] into boiling-salted water for 10 minutes [or until it becomes soft as a boiled potato]. Add some sugar into the water when you switch the heat off, and leave there three minutes longer.
2. Peel the pumpkin, mash it [...with a fork....] and put it into a bowl.
3. Crush the Amaretti [using your fingers, or with a spoon] and add them to the pumpkin with the Parmesan cheese, Honey mustard the spices and season with salt and pepper. Cover and set aside.

________ I don’t want to make this post too long, so I’m gonna give you an eye-bird vision of the pasta-making process....I hope to have more time and space in a new Post...veilleicht!___________________________________________________________

1. Start with the Pasta: put the Flour into a bowl [or if you know how to do that on the table....], add the two eggs, and work it with your hands until this compost will turn into a homogeneous dough [approximately 7 - 10 minutes]
2. Put the dough into a plastic bag, or fold it with cooking film and put it into your refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
3. Take the dough out of the fridge, cut the dough into a number of mini doughs [with this amount of pasta, into 8 - 10 mini-doughs]. Start pulling the pasta using the pasta machine [or your rolling-pin]
4. Cut your pasta into 8x8 cm squares. Put in the middle of each one half teaspoon of filling, fold the pasta into a triangle, and, pushing with your fingers, starting exactly where the fill finishes, close the pasta into a closed triangle. Fold the tip of each triangle on itslef [the important here is to prevent the filling from coming out of the Tortello, and the Tortello not to open during the cooking process]

1. Done with geometry...I promise....Put every single Triangle-Tortello onto a big flat plate with some Flour [be careful not to put a Tortello over the other, otherwise, by the end of your folding you will have a single huge Tortello]
2. Once your hands start hurting, and you are covered of ravioli filling and you have finished folding pasta, put the Tortelli into boiling and salted water for 5 minutes [please, before pouring all your ravioli into the water try with one, so you will find out if you will end up with a Tortello soup, and to check the cooking time]
3. Serve with some melted butter, parmesan cheese and a huge smile on your face!

Bis Bald.