Tortellini anyone?

[Mooshmouse]

Inspired by a recent pasta-making class as part of our Serious Foodie cooking course, a group of us invaded BCinBC's kitchen on Saturday evening to try our hand at tortellini stuffing: *Deborah*, canucklehead and me and Mr. Mooshmouse. Armed with bagloads of goodies, ingredients and recipes for three fillings and three sauces together with a whole lotta wine, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.

First thing's first however. Can't make pasta unless you're sufficiently fueled.

With the exception of one bottle, all the wines that we drank that evening were from British Columbia. Tasting notes are completely non-existent; from what I remember, this Salt Spring Island wine was rather fresh with lots of green apple.

Our first antipasti plate. Starting at 12:00 and working clockwise, there's mortadella, another cold meat of unknown provenance (Lee, help me out here!), wild boar saucisson from BCinBC's recent trip to France, paté, water crackers, stuffed chile peppers and roasted red pepper dip.

As you can see, we don't mess around with the antipasti. These tasty nibbles and the sliced meats were all courtesy of canucklehead. When he says he’ll bring appetizers, he means it!

Bottle number one didn't last very long, so we cracked open a Tinhorn Creek 2003 Pinot Noir before breaking out the eggs and flour.

Here's *Deborah* putting some muscle into her kneading.

And me setting my happy little dough ball to rest.

We thought this looked a lot like some kind of foodie "shells" game.

Dough still resting? What a perfect opportunity to open a third bottle of wine! This one came recommended by fellow eGulleter James Kendal: a Ribera Del Duero - Corona de Castilla Estilo 03.

Time to rock and roll and crank out that pasta. The sheets ended up being so long that everyone had to get in on the act; some rolled pasta and others cooked the various sauces. Once we were done, there was pasta hanging on the back of almost every chair in the dining nook.

Lo and behold, the finished products from five sets of pasta-folding hands. First batch was squash and mascarpone tortellini, pictured here with our fourth bottle of wine, an Inniskillen 1998 Estate Bottled Dark Horse Vineyards Meritage.

Second batch of tortelloni was a takeoff on Rob Feenie's crab ravioli recipe from his Iron Chef win. Alas, however, lump crabmeat was nowhere to be found on Saturday afternoon, so I picked up tiger prawns as a substitute. Filling ingredients included Japanese mayo, shallots, ginger and garlic.

Much to my chagrin, I realized halfway through the second batch that I was supposed to be folding inny bellybuttons rather than bishop's mitres... the third batch was much more photogenic.

Here's BCinBC tossing up a spicy caesar salad while all the pasta action took place.

Last but not least, the final batch of ricotta/peccorino romano tortellini. There was one irregularly sliced section of dough left, so I decided to make the mother of all tortelloni as you'll see on the lower left. BCinBC didn't actually cook it, though, which left me to wonder if he was going to shellac it and use it as a souvenir of our pasta extravaganza.

Over 200 tortellini later, it was obscenely late by the time we finally sat down to eat. Thankfully, we weren't falling-down hypoglycemic as a result of our ongoing snacking.

Dinner is served! We plated each course separately with a break in between to toss the pasta in warm sauce.

Spicy Caesar Salad with homemade pesto croutons

Fresh Pesto and Ham Breads, courtesy of Mrs. BCinBC

Squash/Mascarpone Tortellini in a Sage/Noisette Browned Butter

Prawn Tortelloni with Vodka/Lemon/Cream Sauce

Quails' Gate 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon

Ricotta/Peccorino Romano Tortellini in (canucklehead's) Bolognese Sauce

Urp. There were six very full stomachs at the end of this pasta journey. However, we managed to save a last little bit of space for *Deborah*'s beautiful pear tart served with thyme sauce anglaise.

The tart tasted just as good as it looked. I had brought along a bottle of champagne to accompany dessert, but we had all consumed until we could consume no more.

What a phenomenal evening! The cooking process was just as much fun as the eating, made even more enjoyable by great company. Thanks so much to Mr. and Mrs. BCinBC for opening their home, their kitchen and their wine cellar to us! And thanks too to my cooking companions – canucklehead, *Deborah* and my sweet husband – for contributing your culinary talents. I wonder what kind of food we'll tackle next time...

[Daniel]

Wow.. You Vancouver folks sure have a lot of fun over there.. Thats such a huge pasta sheet.. Mine arent even half that length.. Great job as usual! Dinner looks fantastic..

[Daddy-A]

You guys rock! Awesome looking tortellini, and an impressive array of vino!

A.

[*Deborah*]

Ohhhh, it was all SO GOOD!

I will dream of those tortellini for a while, I think!

The squash/mascarpone ones were made with a cake flour pasta, and it was so tender and delicate, but I guess we did something right because they didn't explode at all! and the prawn ones are the least photogenic, I think, but I think they may have taken the cake with the flavour combo...hard to choose a first among equals, though.

Thanks for taking such good pics, Moosh!

[canucklehead]

Our first antipasti plate.  Starting at 12:00 and working clockwise, there's mortadella, another cold meat of unknown provenance (Lee, help me out here!), wild boar saucisson from BCinBC's recent trip to France, paté, water crackers, stuffed chile peppers and roasted red pepper dip.

As you can see, we don't mess around with the antipasti.  These tasty nibbles and the sliced meats were all courtesy of canucklehead.  When he says he’ll bring appetizers, he means it!

←

All of the cold cuts and antipasti that I supplied were from Renzullo's in Vancouver. Great place - looks like a little grocery store from the outside but chock full of goodness.

The meats were a thinly sliced Mortadella and Porchetta - both delicous.

[BCinBC]

Thanks for taking photos Moosh, and thanks to all for coming over. Too much fun!

Some notes I wanted to add in:

Antipasti

Personally I loved the as-of-yet unnamed ham (ETA: Porchetta) and the pate on the first plate, and the mushrooms and the un-ripe (or ?? - the green ones) olives from the second. The saucisson IMO was too fatty to eat on its own, I will have to figure out how to use this stuff in a better application. (Pizza.)

Caesar Salad

Nice close-up Moosh, that is the sexiest I've ever seen that salad!

Bread

The Mrs (or perhaps "NCinBC"?) did indeed make some wonderful bread. I wanted to mention that the ham is house-made Serrano from a little shop in South Vancouver called Koni. I was watching the butcher clean and slice a piece, and I had to get some. It was excellent.

Squash Tortellini w/ Sage Beurre Noisette

As the others mentioned, I experimented with cake flour for this pasta dough while the others used AP. And I'm quite glad at how it turned out: very silky, yet obviously strong enough to endure the boiling. I kneaded the hell out of it though. My arms were friggin killing me.

I cheated on the stuffing, using ricotta in lieu of mascarpone (I just could not find a decent yet small tub of mascarpone - Koni was out!). However, after processing and straining, the filling turned out fine.

The sauce I was disappointed in; the sage didn't quite come through for me, and next time I might add a squeeze of orange to brighten it up.

Prawn Tortellini w/ Vodka Cream Lemon Sauce

I loved this one! It was quite different, very Asian as opposed to Italian, however the filling was just excellent. Prawn was the texture of lobster, and ginger highlighted. Good call on the not-excessive mayo, the consistency was perfect.

Ricotta Peccorino Tortellini w/ Bolognese Sauce

Others liked the first two better, but honestly, these were my favourites! Perhaps because they were the most "basic" in that they displayed the ingredients as is. The filling was light (really!) and went so well with the beautiful sauce. Canucklehead, I can't remember where you said you got the recipe from, but it is a winner.

I do still have that monster tortelloni, which I was meaning to boil up and sauce with the remaining 4 T of Bolognese in my fridge. Waste not want not!

Pear Tart w/ Thyme Creme Anglaise

Thank you Deborah! I'm quite intrigued by these new-fangled herb-infused desserts, and yours was expertly done. The thyme really did come through in this one, and accompanied your poached pears nicely. BTW your pears were also deftly poached, they retained enough texture to the end!

Edited November 8, 2005 by BCinBC (log)

[snowangel]

More details on the vodka/lemon/cream sauce. This is the second time you have mentioned this particular one.

[Abra]

Ok, that does it. I'm coming up there soon if I have to walk. That pasta looks worth walking for!

[Mooshmouse]

More details on the vodka/lemon/cream sauce.  This is the second time you have mentioned this particular one.

←

Susan, I'm off to cooking class at the moment during which I'll check with Chef Tony whether or not he minds me posting the recipe. If he does, then I'll PM it to you once I'm home. Lemme tell you, though, it's a winner... lovely and creamy, very delicately flavoured.

And Abra, you know that you're always more than welcome at any 'dinner of the moment' that might coincide with a visit up to Vancouver.

[appreciator]

Just have to say that your pasta looks great.... you should think about posting it in the Fresh/Stuffed Pasta & Gnocchi--Cook-Off XIII, eGullet Recipe Cook-Off Series thread.

It's really cool to see that the Serious Foodie course is paying off

[fud]

Boy I really need to invite myself over to these things...

Deb, that tart looks SO GOOD

I'm assuming you all left some tart for next class right?

[*Deborah*]

Um no... I left it with BCinBC to eat during the football game!

I did give Chef Tony a slice of the one I made the next day...but I finshed that off last night.