Kumara & Feta Tortellini

I think it's time for a meal that makes you feel all cozy and comfy indoors.

Well last week was a sh*tter of a week weather-wise! The Sydney storms were crazy here, it didn't stop raining with cyclonic wind tossed in the mix for almost 5 days (unheard of around these parts). I'm counting my lucky stars though as not much damage was done to our apartment building except for the lift shaft filling up with water. And after a beautiful ANZAC morning and lunch under blue skies and sunny weather, a big hailstorm came in out of nowhere. I shouldn't complain though, what we've experienced simply pales in comparison with current world disasters, with the latest Nepal earthquake being the most awful tragedy 

Onto something more positive and perhaps comforting, in an effort to recycle good recipes I've shared on here, I used leftover roasted kumara fries from THIS POST, mashed it up and mixed it with some feta and creme fraiche, and then placed them inside some fresh home made pasta sheets. Now I can't for the life of me remember whether I made enough pasta sheets that would serve 2 people or 1 person. So I have just given you an indicator for 1 person's lot of pasta sheet (and you may have leftover kumara mash). Double the ingredients if you are making for 2. Easy!

KUMARA & FETA TORTELLINI RECIPE

INGREDIENTS

Kumara & Feta filling

• 250gm Roasted Golden Kumara, processed to a paste
• 2-3 tsp of Creme Fraiche
• 30gm of Feta mixed
• 2 tsp of Garlic Oil
• 1 Egg Yolk
• Couple teaspoons of Cold Water

Pasta sheets

• 100gm Plain Flour
• 1 Large Egg
• Salt & Pepper to season

Brown Butter & Sage Sauce

• 50gm Unsalted Butter
• 5-6 Fresh Sage Leaves
• Wedge of Lemon
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• Shaved Parmesan (optional)
• Toasted Pine nuts (optional)

Special Equipment required: Pasta Machine

STEPS

Kumara & Feta Filling

(1) Mash up the roasted golden Kumara with a fork, or better yet with a food processor.
(2) Either with your fork or with the food processor, mash together the Feta, garlic oil, egg yolk, and a couple teaspoons of water to loosen up the paste.
(3) Stir through enough creme fraiche until the filling is to your taste and texture density. Then set aside.

Pasta sheets

(1) Place the plain flour into a large bowl and make a well in the middle.

(2) Crack the egg into that well and slowly stir the flour into the egg well (either with your fingers or a fork), bringing the circular edge from the inside out, a little bit at a time, slowly gathering more and more flour into the well until it is full incorporated into a ball

(3) Place this dough ball onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes and then flatten to a  rough 15cm diameter round disc, wrap with glad wrap / cling film, and leave aside to rest for about 20 minutes, or until you are ready to roll it out

(4) Now I highly recommend you have a pasta machine where you can roll the pastry out to as thiiiiin as possible (i.e. setting 1 on your pasta machine). Once you have passed the dough through the pasta machine until you have lone long thin strip, cut out 10cm circles.

Assembly

(1) Place your Kumara filling (about a teaspoon) into the centre of the circle, wet one half of the circle with a bit of water and then fold the pasta pastry in half over the filling.

(2)You can simply leave your tortellini to be a half moon, or you can be fancy and bring the two ends of the moon to the front and pinch the pasta close. Continue until you have the amount you want to eat, or continue until you've run out of pasta and freeze the tortellini that you won't be eating.

Cook

(1) Place a large saucepan of water on the boil with a generous pinch of salt and dollop of olive oil.

(2) Once water is boiling, slowly drop however many tortellinis you wish to serve into the hot water (perhaps 5 at a time). They are cooked when they float! Spoon them out into a large bowl (or your serving dishes) once they gone afloat and reserve about a cup of the pasta water.

(3) While the Kumara tortellinis are boiling away (which shouldn't take too long at all), place the butter in a wide saucepan/frying pan on medium heat and let it melt until it gets to almost the stage where it turns from melted yellow to translucent.
(4) Place your sage leaves flat onto the butter and watch the butter go from translucent to a nice golden nutty brown colour. 

(5) Once your sage leaves start crackling and going crispy, turn off the heat, squeeze over the lemon wedge juice and mix in a couple spoonfuls of reserved pasta water and season with salt & pepper to taste. Set this aside

Serve

(1) Place your cooked tortellini dumplings in a dish/shallow bowl then spoon over the brown butter & sage sauce.

(2) Sprinkle over some toasted pine nuts (optional) and season generously with Parmesan and Salt & pepper!

Now chalk it up to bad photography timing and also being a rookie, but my hot tortellini babies sucked up all the brown butter sauce and so it doesn't look very present in these photos. Guess I'll have to reshoot it another time, but I couldn't wait any longer to post this recipe up, I shot this back in November! If you're going to try this recipe though, it definitely needs a sauce, and there is nothing better than to pair it with a nutty, herby, buttery sauce like the brown butter & sage sauce, with lashes of parmesan shavings!

Enjoy X