Tortellini might sound like something only the pros can do, but with a bit of instruction from Riverside Kitchen instructor and Chef Stephen Bradley, you’ll make a pasta dish that you can really be proud of, from scratch.

Serves: 2 | Prep. time: 2.5 hours | Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

Pasta

• 350g good fresh local flour
• 150g semolina flour
• 5 eggs  
• 30-40ml water

Filling

• 1 garlic bulb
• 200ml full cream milk
• 2g fresh grated nutmeg
• 150g old white bread with the crust removed
• 200g firm ricotta
• 40g grated Grana Padano
• 1 handful fresh basil, chopped
• 2 egg yolks
• Sea salt, to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Sauce

• 100g butter
• 12 sage leaves, roughly chopped
• 200g fresh broad beans
• A little cooking water from the pasta
• 6 slices of jamón serrano (or good quality prosciutto)
• Micro greens

making it happen

Pasta

1. Put flour, semolina flour and eggs into a food processor and process until it forms a crumb. 2. Continue processing, adding a little water at a time until it comes together to form a dough. 3. Remove from the food processor and knead on a lightly floured bench. 4. Wrap in cling wrap and place in the fridge to rest.

Filling

1. Peel all the garlic and simmer in the milk until tender, then add the nutmeg. 2. Pour the milk mixture over the bread and leave aside until it is cool and the bread has absorbed all the milk. 3. Blitz the soaked bread and garlic in the food processor until it forms a smooth paste, then transfer to a bowl and allow to cool. 4. Add ricotta, Grana Padano, basil and egg yolks to the bowl and gently mix together, trying not to mix all the texture out of the ricotta.
5. Taste, and season with sea salt and black pepper.

Tortellini

1. Roll out the pasta to the finest setting using a pasta machine or, if you are doing it by hand, roll it as thinly as you can. 2. Using a 10cm cookie cutter, cut the dough into circles. 3. Place a spoonful of the filling in each circle. 4. Brush the outside edge of one half of each circle with a little water. Fold the circles in half, encasing the filling and press the two edges together, being sure not to push the filling out as you do so. 5. You are now left with filled half-circles, brush one end of each straight edge with a little water and then bring the two ends together to make your tortellini. You can either cook them straight away or you can freeze them on a tray and cook them from frozen later. 6. To cook, plunge the tortellini into very salty boiling water with a dash of olive oil and cook until they float to the surface and are tender.

Sauce

1. Put the butter in a heavy frying pan and cook until the whey turns golden brown. 2. Add the sage leaves and fry for 20 seconds before adding the broad beans and cook for 2 minutes. 3. Add the tortellini and a little of the cooking water to the pan and swirl around until the pasta is well coated in the sauce. 4. Put the tortellini onto warmed plates, top with jamón and garnish with some micro greens. 5. Serve immediately.

Chef Stephen Bradley

“My cuisine is produce-driven and diverse, while sticking to the roots of the dish I am creating. I started out as a kitchen hand during school holidays as a 14-year-old, worked my way up and then at 24 opened my own restaurant which I operated for nearly 10 years. These days my outlet for my love of cooking is through teaching and running events at Riverside Kitchen.”

Three key ingredients to a tasty dish? The key is to learn to trust your senses, not just taste, but smell and vision too. If you really watch what you are doing, you’ll see how the ingredients change through the processes, and see how the aromas react with one another. And always taste as you go along – your dishes will get better and better.

How important are local ingredients to you, and why? Super important. Not all, but most things lose flavour over time, so the fresher the better. Also the less miles it has travelled, the better for the planet. That’s why it’s so great to have such awesome local producers just downstairs.

Read our full Q&A with Chef Stephen here.

riversidekitchen.co.nz