Fresh Tortellini

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From Never Trust a Thin Cook and Other Lessons from Italy’s Culinary Capital by Eric Dregni.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press, 2009, 2024. Copyright 2009 by Eric Dregni. Used by permission.

FRESH PASTA DOUGH

300 grams of double zero flour (about 1 ¼ cups of soft flour, which is low in protein. Here we use all-purpose flour, but it’s not as soft and gets harder.)

Eggs 3 or 4 or however much is enough. (This is where you need to just experiment.)

The dough must be soft. This is the most difficult part: now you need to roll the dough as thin as possible. Then cut it into little squares: 4 cm by 4 cm.

Courtesy of Eric Dregni

RECIPE FOR TORTELLINI (STUFFING)

1 kg. Veal, ground
1 kg. Pork, ground
1 kg. Chicken breast, ground
1 kg. Mortadella, ground
1 kg. Prosciutto (crudo not cotto, ground)

Mix all this together.

Put one 250-gram package of panna da cucina (you can substitute about a cup of mascarpone, crème fraiche, or just heavy whipping cream) in a pan together with all the ground meat. Stir for about a quarter hour, then let cool. Add two egg yolks and mix in with a little salt and a little pepper. Add two kilos of top quality grated parmigiano-reggiano (or grana Padano, but she means parm since “grana” is the generic term for grated parmigiano). At this point, if the mixture is too wet, add bread crumbs as if you were making meatballs.