Italy | Tortelloni

Italy — home to some of the world’s richest cooking traditions from the fresh-made pastas in the north to herding sheep in the south, producing cheeses like Pecorino; the king of all cheeses in Southern Italy. Seafood is also extremely important to the southern Italian cuisine due to the rocky coastline and lack of available farm land. But this recipe comes from the ancient city of Bologna, Tortelloni.

My younger brother Joe recently came back to the United States after spending some time in the city of Bologna, where he learned the traditional methods of making pasta. I asked him if he would be willing to be my “guest chef” for the evening so that I could experience the closest thing to traditional Italian pasta.

Instructions

# of people times 100 = grams of flour. I usually do half semolina half 00

# of people = # of eggs

Sift flour together onto a large cutting board or table

Put a hole in the middle and make a large ring of flour (making sure you leave a decent sized wall)

Add eggs to the middle

Using a fork, whisk the eggs and slowly incorporate flour

When you can no longer use the fork, use the excess flour on the outside to dust your hands and start folding the dough until it all comes together in a very shaggy ball

Then take all of the flour out and put it in a bowl with a softer in it

Sprinkle flour onto dough liberally at this point in the process

Knead for 10 min adding flour as needed. Don't add too much flour. Let rest for 30 min. Roll out dough and cut out whatever shape you desire

Recipe provided by: Joe Hatzfeld

How to fold Tortelloni:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKLmggw6ROg