Monday, May 7, 2007

Pasta Weekend Part Three: Butternut Squash Tortelloni with Sage Butter...


...and pasta weekend is hereby brought to a close! I won't subject you to a keynote speech... This final installment was based on one of Biba Caggiano's recipes, from her book Biba's Taste of Italy. Or more accurately, it is one of Biba Caggiano's recipes, from said book. And as such, I'm not going to post the recipe, as posting someone else's recipe verbatim on my blog really doesn't seem kosher. It is, after all, copyrighted material. You'll just have to go buy the book. But I will tell you this much: The filling was made with baked butternut squash, Parmigiano-Reggiano, nutmeg, salt and pepper. And the sauce was made from... well, sage and butter. The pasta, as with the previous two installments, was based on Mario Batali's recipe, but with a couple extra egg yolks added this time. Here are some photos of the process, for your enjoyment:

It all begins with the pasta volcano:


Next up, the Butternut/Parmigiano filling:


Finally, the evolution of the tortelloni:




Add to that some chiffonaded sage briefly cooked in melted butter and you've got yourself some good vittles! This was hands down the tastiest of this weekend's pasta experiments. The sage butter was nothing short of sublime, and paired perfectly with the squash filling. Biba Caggiano is a genious. This is one I'll be filing away...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This looks more appetizing than the taglatelli. I'd like to try it next time I'm out there! LGS

Anonymous said...

They look great! hehe The evolution of the tortelloni series looks awesome. :)

Tommy said...

LGS (aka Mom):
It looks better than the tagliatelle because it WAS better than the tagliatelle, which I didn't roll thin enough, and I undercooked it. And the sauce was bland. And the tuna was overdone. Definitely the flop of the weekend, but the other two turned out pretty okay. Have fun in Europe!

Nina:
Thanks! Yeah, they were pretty good. With the leftovers, I browned the butter before throwing in the sage - even better! I enjoyed the Napa/Sonoma photo essay by the way. Can you believe I've never been to NoCal?