Tortelli di Zucca · Tortelli di Zucca alla Mantovana
Emilia-Romagna · pasta · serves 4 · 180 min total · hard
Christmas Eve in Mantua — the Gonzaga court's signature. The amaretti and mostarda turn savoury squash into a Renaissance riddle.
Ingredients
- 800 g butternut or kabocha squash
- 300 g '00' flour
- 3 eggs eggs
- 80 g amaretti biscuits, crushed
- 80 g Mantuan mostarda (mustard-fruit)
- 120 g Parmigiano Reggiano
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- 100 g butter
- 10 leaves sage
- 1 tsp salt
Method
- Roast squash chunks at 200°C until tender, 35 minutes. Mash, drain in a sieve overnight if possible.
- Mix squash with crushed amaretti, chopped mostarda, half the Parmigiano, nutmeg, salt. The filling should be sweet-savoury and dense.
- Pasta dough: pile flour, well, eggs. Knead 10 minutes. Rest 30 minutes.
- Roll dough thin (1 mm). Cut 7 cm squares. Place a teaspoon of filling, fold into a triangle, seal edges, then bring the two corners together and pinch.
- Boil in salted water 3 minutes.
- Brown butter slowly with sage. Toss tortelli in the sage butter. Shower with remaining Parmigiano.