Tortelli Filled with Chicken Liver, Spinach, and Ricotta
Tortelli are ravioli by another name—a square, filled pasta. And though they vary greatly, like all pastas, tortelli often are filled with fresh ricotta and spinach or other greens, herbs, or vegetables. In Maremma, where carnivorous appetites rule, such a meatless approach is not typical. As you’ll find in this set of recipes, tortelli maremmani have meat inside and outside—and lots of it. Fried chopped chicken livers plump up the tortelli, in addition to ricotta and spinach. Once cooked, the tortelli are dressed with a typical ragù maremmano, made with three chopped meats slowly cooked in tomatoes. My friend Alma likes best boar, chicken, and pork, but here I call for veal, pork, and sausage, because I find that combination comes close to the complexity of the boar. Of course, if you can get boar, by all means use it. This is a great pasta, and worth all the stirring and stuffing. However, it is not necessary to make everything here and put the ingredients together in just one way. The components of tortelli maremmani give many options for delicious meals (and convenient advance preparation). For instance, it’s fine to make the filling and the pasta for the tortelli and leave the ragù for another day. You can sauce your tortelli simply with sage butter, pages 49–50, or just shower them with Tuscan olive oil and Pecorino Toscano. On the other hand, go right to the ragù recipe—skip the tortelli—and make this marvelous sauce to dress any pasta, fresh or dry, or polenta or gnocchi. Indeed, the ragù recipe makes enough for two or more meals. Toss a couple of cups of ragù with spaghetti for a fabulous (and fast) supper one night, and freeze the rest. It will still be perfect whenever you do get a chance to roll and fill those plump tortelli maremmani.
Ingredients
For the Tortelli
For the Tortelli Filling
For Serving
Recommended Equipment
Tuscan Meat and Tomato Ragù
Recommended Equipment: Tuscan Meat and Tomato Ragù
Preparation
Step 1
Prepare the fresh pasta dough and chill it.
Step 2
Drain the ricotta in a mesh sieve set over a bowl for 8 hours or overnight.
Step 3
Bring a large pot of water to the boil, dump in all the spinach, and return to the boil. Blanch for 5 minutes, then drain through a colander. When the spinach is cool, forcefully squeeze out all the moisture, and chop fine.
Step 4
Remove the membranes, fat, and veins from the chicken livers with a paring knife. Rinse them, and pat dry. Heat the olive oil in a small skillet, stir in the onion, and cook over medium heat until wilted. Add the chicken livers, season lightly with salt, and cook for about 5 minutes over moderate heat, turning frequently. When livers are cooked through but still moist, turn off the heat and let them cool a bit. Spoon the livers and onion out of the skillet, and chop them fine with a chef’s knife.
Step 5
Beat the egg in a large bowl. Stir in the chopped livers and the meat juices and oil from the small skillet. Stir in the chopped basil, 1/4 teaspoon salt or more to taste, the ground pepper and nutmeg. Fold in the chopped spinach, drained ricotta, and grated cheese. Chill thoroughly in a sealed container.
Step 6
To make tortelli, cut the pasta dough into four pieces, and roll them all through the pasta machine at progressively narrower settings into sheets 6 inches wide, or as wide as your machine allows. Cut the sheets (crosswise) when they stretch longer than 20 inches. Roll the shorter sheets until the pasta is quite thin, always keeping the sheets about 6 inches wide.
Step 7
Lay one sheet of dough on a lightly floured surface with the long edge running left to right in front of you. With your hands or a rolling pin, stretch the dough gently top to bottom—that is, make it a bit wider than 6 inches, so you can fold it over the filling.
Step 8
Drop a rounded tablespoon of filling on the bottom half of the sheet every 3 inches, from left to right. With a pastry brush dipped in water, moisten the edges of the sheet and in between the mounds of filling, to help the dough stick together. Now fold the sheet over the filling so the top edge aligns with the bottom. Press the dough lightly so it adheres and encloses the filling. Run the pastry cutter in between the mounds, creating 3-inch-square tortelli. Press the edges of the squares to make sure the pasta has sealed. Set the tortelli on a lightly floured tray; stretch and fill all the rolled sheets in the same way.
Step 9
To cook the tortelli, bring 8 quarts of salted water to the boil in a wide pot. Pour the ragù maremmano (recipe follows) or other sauce into one or two skillets (depending on the size of your pans). For the whole batch of tortelli, heat 4 to 5 cups of sauce; about 2 cups sauce for a half-batch. If the sauce is thick, loosen it with hot water from the pasta-cooking pot. Have the sauce already simmering when you cook the tortelli.
Step 10
Drop the tortelli into the boiling water and return it to the boil. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, gently stirring and turning the tortelli to keep them from sticking. When they’re cooked through (test a thick edge of pasta), lift them from the pot with a spider, drain off excess water, and slide them into the sauce.
Step 11
Spread the tortelli in one layer in the skillet, spooning over the hot sauce and shaking the pan, to coat them thoroughly. Remove the pan from the heat, sprinkle grated cheese over the tortelli, and drizzle a final flourish of good olive oil. Arrange tortelli on warm plates and spoon over hot sauce from the skillet.
Tuscan Meat and Tomato Ragù
Step 12
Soak the dried porcini in a cup or so of hot water for at least 1/2 hour.
Step 13
Using the food processor, purée the onion and celery to a paste. Heat the oil in the saucepan over medium-high heat, scrape in the paste, and stir it for 3 or 4 minutes as it steams and starts to caramelize.
Step 14
Add all the meats to the pan, raise the heat, and continuously turn and loosen the chopped meat as it sears and browns. Sprinkle 2 teaspoons salt over the meat, and keep tossing and breaking up any lumps, until all the meat is colored and has started to release moisture. Cook, stirring frequently, to evaporate all the liquid in the pan, about 15 minutes or more.
Step 15
When the meat is dry, pour in the wine, stir well, and bring it to the boil. Cook, frequently stirring, to evaporate the wine. Meanwhile, lift the reconstituted porcini pieces from the soaking water, squeeze them dry, and chop into bits. Stir the porcini into the sizzling meats. When the wine has almost evaporated, pour in the porcini water (but not the sediment), stir, and cook until it too has disappeared into the meat.
Step 16
Pour the tomatoes into the pan, slosh the containers with 2 cups of water, and stir that in. Cook, covered, until the tomato juices are bubbling, then lower the heat and simmer the sauce, partially covered, for 2 to 3 hours—the longer it perks the better! As the sauce reduces, add stock or water as needed to keep the meat covered by liquid.
Step 17
Taste, and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Use right away or—for best flavor—let the sauce sit for a couple of hours or up to 2 days (refrigerated). Loosen sauce with water or stock, if necessary, when reheating.
