Italian tortellini dumplings: recipe for pastry and toppings

Tortellini is an Italian dumpling, shaped like a rosebud. Traditionally made from meat, vegetables and cheese. Interestingly, in Italy, tortellini is made from dough of different colors: yellow, green or red. An unusual shade is given to it by natural additives, for example, spinach juice or tomato. Recipes of tortellini stuffed with meat, ricotta and prosciutto with parmesan are presented in our article. Step by step we will focus on how to knead and roll out the dough for this type of pasta, as well as dumplings and dumplings.

How to make tortellini with meat: ingredients

At first glance, products prepared according to the recipe suggested below strongly resemble dumplings or, rather, dumplings, which are prepared both in Russia and in other countries. But this is a misconception. Preparation of dough for dumplings and dumplings involves the use of kneading water or milk. Also, eggs, flour and salt are added to it. But the dough for Italian tortellini dumplings is prepared without adding liquid - only on the basis of eggs and flour. It turns out more dense, as for the real paste.

To knead the dough for tortellini, you need to prepare the following products on the list:

• flour - 250 g;
• semolina - 70 g;
• egg - 3 pcs.;
• olive oil - 25 ml;
• salt is a pinch.

The filling for Italian dumplings is prepared from the following ingredients:

• minced meat - 200 g;
• onion - 1 pc.;
• garlic in cloves - 2 pcs.;
• carrots - 1 pc.;
• hard cheese - 30 g;
• fresh herbs - 20 g;
• sea ​​salt - a pinch;
• pepper to taste.

Dough for tortellini

Real pasta in Italy is prepared on the basis of egg dough and flour from durum wheat. At home, you can use ordinary wheat flour, and to make the dough more durable, it is recommended to add a little semolina of the finest grinding to it. The sequence of actions during the cooking process will be as follows:

1. Sift wheat flour and semolina onto a clean horizontal table surface.
2. In the center, use your fingers to make a funnel and drive 3 eggs into it. Their required amount is easy to calculate - one for every 100 g of flour.
3. Add a pinch of salt to the eggs and pour olive oil.
4. First, with a fork, and then hands knead the dough. At first it will be liquid, and after 10 minutes it will become tight and uniform.
5. Wrap the dough in a film and set aside for 30 minutes. Before starting further work, you need to give him a "rest".

If desired, you can use the same dough in the preparation of ravioli and dumplings.

Step-by-step cooking tortellini

As in Russian dumplings, pre-fried rather than raw meat is added to Italian dumplings. In general, various tortellini recipes use all kinds of meat, vegetable and cheese fillings. The preparation of minced meat for Italian dumplings is carried out in the following sequence:

1. Chop a small onion with a knife, and grate the carrots on a coarse grater. Fry vegetables in vegetable oil (2 tbsp. L.) For 3-4 minutes.
2. Put the minced meat and finely chopped garlic in a frying of onions and carrots. Fry for about 15 minutes. Salt in the cooking horse, add pepper.
3. Cool the filling, and then additionally pass through the meat grinder so that it becomes more tender and uniform.
4. Grate the cheese.
5. Finely chop the greens with a knife.
6. Add cheese and fresh herbs to the filling. Stir the minced meat.
7. Separate a small piece from the dough. Roll it thinly with a rolling pin or using a special machine for making pasta up to 1 mm thick. It dries very quickly, so it is recommended to work with it in small portions.
8. Cut the dough layer into 4x4 cm squares, put a teaspoon of the filling in the center of each of them. Fold a square in the form of a triangle and carefully close its edges. Connect the two opposite corners to each other.
9. In a similar way to mold all the dumplings. Since the dough dries almost instantly, it can be periodically moistened with a brush with water.

How to cook tortellini?

Like all pasta, Italian dumplings are cooked in large quantities of water. Cook the tortellini as follows:

1. Boil at least 5 liters of water in a saucepan.
2. Add to it a tablespoon of salt, olive oil and bay leaf.
3. Dip the tortellini in boiling water.
4. Cook, stirring constantly with a spoon, for 5 minutes, until the dumplings pop up.
5. Remove the items with a slotted spoon and put on a plate.

Tortellini with spinach and ricotta

This filling is considered traditional for many Italian dishes: for ravioli, and for open pies. Tortellini with ricotta cheese and spinach are juicy and tender. Well, cooking them is a snap:

1. Knead the tortellini dough according to the recipe suggested above. In the meantime, it "rests" on the table, you can safely do the filling.
2. Fold spinach (600 g) in a colander, rinse under running water. If necessary, separate the leaves from the twigs.
3. Dip the spinach in a pot of boiling water for 2 minutes, and then transfer it to a bowl of ice. When the leaves have cooled, squeeze them well with your hands and chop finely with a knife.
4. In a deep bowl, combine ricotta (400 g) with spinach. Add raw egg yolk, 50 g Italian cheese grana padano, salt, pepper. Stir and we can assume that the filling is ready.
5. Roll the dough thinly, divide it into small square pieces, lay the filling in the center of each. Blind dumplings in the form of a triangle. Boil in salted water until they float.

Tortellini with broccoli and cheese sauce

The dough for the next dish is prepared according to the recipe described above. But the filling in Italian tortellini will be completely different:

1. Disassemble broccoli (300 g) into inflorescences, rinse them and dry them on a towel.
2. Grind cabbage with a knife. Add to taste, salt, pepper, a little grated cheese.
3. Cut the dough for tortellini in the traditional way. Fill each square with broccoli filling, blind edges.
4. Cook the cheese sauce. Melt 30 g butter over low heat. Add flour (1 tbsp. L.) And mix it well with butter.
5. Heat 150 ml of milk and broth a little.
6. Pour a warm liquid into the butter-flour mixture with a thin stream. Constantly stirring to bring the sauce to a thickening.
7. After 3 minutes add grated cheese to the sauce. Cook another 2 minutes, then remove the pan from the heat.
8. Cook the tortellini with broccoli. Put the products on a plate and pour them with cheese sauce.

Tortellini with Prosciutto and Parmesan

A distinctive feature of the next dish is that already boiled dumplings are fried in a pan with olive oil before serving. The dish turns out amazingly tasty, although more high-calorie than in previous recipes.

Tortellini with prosciutto and Parmesan cheese are prepared as follows:

1. Knead a dough of 200 g flour and 2 eggs. Set it aside for half an hour, having previously wrapped it in cling film.
2. For the filling, 80 g of prosciutto cut into small pieces and put in a deep bowl. Grate 80 g of parmesan here. Add a bunch of finely chopped fresh basil to the filling. Mix. You can add pepper to taste. No salt needed.
3. Fill the dough into squares with a mixture of herbs, prosciutto and parmesan. Blind dumplings and boil them until cooked in boiling water.

Italian Tomato Soup with Tortellini and Spinach

When cooking this dish, you must adhere to the following sequence of actions:

1. Prepare the filling for the tortellini. To do this, fry the chopped onions in olive oil, then the minced meat (300 g). After 5 minutes add garlic, sweet paprika (2 tsp), soy sauce (2 tbsp.). Fry the ingredients until the mince is ready.
2. Blind stuffed tortellini stuffed with minced meat. Knead the dough out of 100 flour, 1 egg and a pinch of salt.
3. Heat 500 ml of broth in a saucepan. Once it boils, add tomato paste (100 g), tomatoes in its own juice (200 g) and a tablespoon of sugar.
4. After 5 minutes, add tortellini to the soup. According to the recipe, they should be cooked for 7 minutes.
5. Add 100 g of pure spinach leaves (fresh or frozen) to the soup. Cook the dish for another 5 minutes. Before serving, let the soup brew for 10 minutes.