Tortellini, the ring-shaped pasta from Italy, here comes with fresh Mediterranean vegetables instead of the traditional meat or cheese filling. (And it’s always nice to roll your own pasta.)
Mediterranean vegetable tortellini with asparagus and saffron cream
(Serves 4)
Ingredients
For Pasta Dough
Refined flour - 50 gms
Olive oil - 10ml
Semolina - 5gms
Egg - 1.
Egg yolk - 3
Salt - a pinch
For the filling
Fresh button mushroom - 100 gms
Ceps - 50 gms
Portobello mushrooms - 50 gms
Black fungus - 50 gms
Garlic - 15 gms
Onion - 50 gms
Cream cheese - 100 gms
Thyme - 2 sprigs
Salted butter - 25 gms
For saffron cream
White wine - 25ml
Shallots - 20 gms
Garlic - 2 pods
Single cream - 50 ml
Soft yellow butter - 25 gms
Salt - a pinch
White pepper - a pinch
Saffron (soaked in hot water) - 15 gms
Asparagus - 1 bunch
Cherry tomatoes - 100 gms
Olive oil - 15 ml
Parmesan cheese - 50 gms
Method
Prepare dough by mixing all the ingredients mentioned for pasta dough. Keep it aside for resting for about 30 minutes. Blanch the asparagus spears and keep aside.
Mix the cherry tomatoes with olive oil and a pinch of salt and roast in the oven at a very low temperature till they dry, but they should not discolour.
Meanwhile, sauté garlic, onion, thyme and mushrooms well for five minutes till the moisture has evaporated. Adjust seasoning and leave it for cooling. When cooled down add cream cheese.
For the sauce, sauté the shallots and garlic in butter and then add the wine. Cook till the moisture evaporates and then add in the rest of the ingredients. Mix well, bring to a simmer and leave aside.
Now roll out pasta dough into a sheet of about 3mm thickness, cut into round with a ring mould, fill the stuffing and fold in half moon and then twist it to meet its ends.
Blanch pasta for about two minutes and tossed with saffron butter sauce and asparagus.
Serve hot garnished with fresh herbs, cherry tomatoes and parmesan shavings.
Chef Suprabhath Roy, executive chef at the Eros managed by Hilton, Nehru Place, New Delhi, has worked in renowned kitchens in India and abroad and has grown up in the foodie city of Lucknow, feasting on the kebab parathas and pulaos in its bylanes and Bengali food cooked at home. Starting his career with The Taj Group of Hotels and having, the chef is also credited with conceptualising and opening the multiaward winning restaurant, The Pink Poppadom at the Ista Bangalore, where he was the executive chef. He has also been the Chef de Cuisine at Nina, the award-winning fusion restaurant with an Indo-European concept menu at the One and Only Royal Mirage, Dubai.
