Traditional Italian Parma Herb and Ricotta Tortelli | Tortelli d'Erbetta Parmigiani
Tortelli d'erbetta are the fresh pasta of Parma and, in that city, the pasta of one particular night. They are square, sealed with a fluted wheel, filled with cooked greens, ricotta and a great deal of Parmigiano Reggiano, and dressed with nothing but melted butter and more cheese. There is no sauce to hide behind and no garnish. Everything depends on the filling being dry, the sheet being thin and the butter being right.
The erbetta of the name is not a herb. In Parma it means the young leaf beet grown in the market gardens of the Po plain, close to Swiss chard but with a thinner stalk and a milder leaf. Chard leaves are the standard substitute everywhere else and work perfectly, provided the white ribs are removed and the leaves are squeezed with real force. Water left in the greens is the single thing that ruins this dish.
Yield: 4 servings, about 48 tortelli. Prep: 1 hour. Rest: 45 minutes. Cook: 20 minutes. Total: about 2 hours 15 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Region: Emilia, the province of Parma.
The Story
In Parma these tortelli belong to the night of San Giovanni, the 23rd of June, when families eat them outdoors and then leave walnuts and herbs out to gather the dew that folk tradition holds to be protective. The date is not decorative: it falls when leaf beet is at its most tender, before the summer heat makes it coarse and bitter, and when the year's fresh ricotta is at its best. The dish is a seasonal marker as much as a recipe.
The wider tradition is Emilian rather than purely urban. Filled pasta squares of this kind appear across the duchy of Parma and into Piacenza, where the same filling goes into tortelli with a twisted tail known as tortelli con la coda. What distinguishes the Parma version is the flatness of the square, the sealed fluted edge and the absolute refusal to complicate the dressing. Butter and Parmigiano Reggiano, full stop, in a territory that produces the finest examples of both.
The cheese anchors the dish geographically. Parmigiano Reggiano has been made in this province since at least the twelfth century, by Benedictine and Cistercian monks first and consorzio dairies later, and in a filling of greens and ricotta it does the work meat does elsewhere: it supplies salt, savour and depth. A tortello d'erbetta made with a generic grating cheese is not a lesser version of this dish, it is a duller one.
Ingredients
For the pasta dough
Italian 00 flour, 2 1/4 cups (300 g)
Whole eggs, large, 3
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp (5 ml), optional
For the filling
Leaf beet or Swiss chard leaves, stems removed, 1 1/2 lb (680 g) raw
Fresh cow milk ricotta, well drained, 10 oz (285 g)
Parmigiano Reggiano, aged 24 months, grated, 1 cup (90 g)
Egg yolk, large, 1
Freshly grated nutmeg, 1/4 tsp (0.5 g)
Fine sea salt, 3/4 tsp (4.5 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For finishing
Unsalted butter, best quality, 5 oz (140 g)
Parmigiano Reggiano, grated, 3/4 cup (70 g)
Reserved pasta cooking water, about 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Coarse sea salt for the pasta water, 1 1/2 tbsp (26 g) for 5 quarts
Semola for dusting the trays
Preparation
Step 1
Cook and dry the greens. Wash the leaves in several changes of cold water and pull the white ribs away by hand, since ribs left in give a stringy filling. Cook them in a wide pan with only the water clinging to them, covered, 4 to 5 minutes until fully wilted. Drain, cool under cold water to keep the colour, then squeeze in a clean cloth with as much force as you can manage. Squeeze again after five minutes. From 1 1/2 lb (680 g) raw you should end with about 7 oz (200 g) of dense green paste.
Step 2
Make the dough. Mound the flour with the salt, make a well, add the eggs and the optional oil and work them in with a fork before switching to your hands. Knead 10 minutes until the dough is smooth, elastic and slightly tacky rather than sticky. It will feel stiff, which is correct for a pasta that has to hold a seal. Wrap it tightly and rest it 45 minutes at room temperature so it will roll without springing back.
Step 3
Build the filling. Chop the squeezed greens finely with a knife rather than a processor, which turns them to a wet purée. Combine with the ricotta, the grated Parmigiano, the egg yolk, nutmeg, salt and pepper and mix until even but no longer. Taste it: it should be clearly seasoned and distinctly cheesy, since a sealed filling tastes blander once cooked. Refrigerate 30 minutes. If it looks at all wet, add another tablespoon of grated cheese.
Step 4
Roll the sheets. Cut the dough into four pieces and keep three covered. Roll each through the machine, starting wide and working down, folding and passing twice at the first setting. Take it to about 1/32 inch (0.8 mm), thin enough that a hand is visible in outline through the sheet but not so thin that it tears. Keep the sheets covered with a cloth, because a dry edge will never seal.
Step 5
Fill and seal the tortelli. Place teaspoon sized mounds of filling, about 1/2 oz (14 g) each, in rows spaced 2 inches (5 cm) apart. Brush between them with water only if the sheet has begun to dry. Lay a second sheet over the top and press firmly around each mound, pushing the air out from the centre towards the edges. Trapped air makes tortelli float badly and split in the pot.
Step 6
Cut and rest them. Cut into squares of about 2 inches (5 cm) with a fluted pasta wheel, pressing the sealed edge once more between finger and thumb. Lay them on semola dusted trays in a single layer, not touching, and leave them uncovered 20 minutes so the surface dries slightly. That brief drying stops them sticking to the tray and to each other.
Step 7
Cook them gently and hold the water. Bring 5 quarts (4.7 litres) of water to the boil and salt it with the 1 1/2 tablespoons of coarse salt, a lighter hand than usual because filling and finishing cheese are both salty. Lower the heat until the surface is barely trembling, then slide the tortelli in a few at a time, since a rolling boil bursts the seams. They need 3 to 4 minutes from the moment they rise. Reserve a cup of water and lift them out with a spider.
Step 8
Melt the butter and finish. While the pasta cooks, melt the butter in a wide pan over low heat until it is foaming and just beginning to smell nutty, then stop. Add 3 or 4 tablespoons of the pasta water and swirl the pan to bring it together into a pale, slightly thickened sauce. Add the drained tortelli, turn them once or twice with a spoon rather than tossing them, and scatter over half the Parmigiano off the heat. Serve at once.
Plating
Warm the plates. Butter dressed pasta sets and turns greasy the moment it meets cold porcelain, and tortelli hold a great deal of heat in the filling that they lose fast on a cold surface. Flat plates are traditional here rather than bowls, since the tortelli are meant to lie in a single layer.
Lift the tortelli one by one with a slotted spoon and arrange them slightly overlapping, twelve per portion, in two rows or a loose circle. Spoon the remaining butter over them, then finish with the rest of the Parmigiano scattered from a height so it falls evenly rather than in one patch. Nothing else belongs on the plate: no cream, no sage, no pepper mill, no herb. Parma serves this dish bare and it is right to.
Professional Technique
The technique that decides this dish is the extraction of water from the greens. Chard and leaf beet are over ninety percent water, and cooking releases it rather than removing it. A filling made from insufficiently squeezed greens will weep inside the sealed pasta during cooking, soften the dough from the inside and turn the seam into a leak. Squeezing in a cloth, then squeezing again after a short rest once more water has migrated to the surface, takes 1 1/2 lb (680 g) of raw leaf down to around 7 oz (200 g). That reduction is not approximate. It is the target.
The second is the seal itself, which is mechanical rather than a matter of glue. Egg wash and water are crutches that a correctly handled sheet does not need: fresh pasta with a slightly tacky surface bonds to itself under pressure. The technique is to press from the centre of each mound outwards so the air escapes before the edge closes, then to press the rim firmly between finger and thumb. A tortello with a bubble of trapped air will float high, cook unevenly on its exposed side and frequently burst along the weakest part of the seam.
Texture and Moisture Control
Three moisture levels have to be balanced: the dough, the filling and the sauce. The dough is deliberately stiff, made with whole eggs and no added water, because it has to roll thin and still resist a wet filling for twenty minutes before it is cooked. The filling is as dry as it can be while staying creamy, which means well drained ricotta as well as hard squeezed greens. If the ricotta is loose, drain it overnight in a sieve.
The sauce is the only place where water is welcome, and it belongs there in a controlled amount. Butter alone is an unstable dressing that slides off the pasta and pools; a few tablespoons of starchy pasta water whisked into warm melted butter produces a light emulsion that clings to the surface and carries the cheese. Keep the butter below the point where the milk solids brown, because a true beurre noisette is delicious but belongs to pumpkin tortelli, not to these. The flavour wanted here is sweet and creamy, not toasted.
The cooking water is kept less salty than for a dry pasta, because the filling already carries a cup of Parmigiano and more goes on at the end. Over salted water on top of that makes the dish tiring after five pieces. The pasta should keep a little bite at the sealed edges where the two sheets meet.
Professional Mise en Place
Filled pasta is the classic prepare ahead primo, since everything but the final five minutes can be done in advance and the shaped tortelli freeze better than almost any other fresh pasta.
Equipment and tools
Pasta machine or a long rolling pin and a large wooden board
Fluted pasta wheel and a bench scraper
Clean cotton cloths for squeezing the greens and for covering sheets
Semola dusted trays and a spider or slotted skimmer
Wide low pan for the butter, large enough to hold all the tortelli in one layer
Prepared ahead
Greens cooked, squeezed and chopped, up to 2 days ahead and refrigerated
Filling mixed and refrigerated, up to 1 day ahead in a sealed container
Ricotta drained overnight in a sieve if it is at all loose
Tortelli shaped and frozen on the tray, then bagged, up to 1 month ahead
Parmigiano grated on the day of service, never before
Service setup
Water at a bare simmer, lightly salted, in a wide pot rather than a tall one
Butter weighed and cut, ready to melt while the pasta cooks
Reserved pasta water in a heatproof jug beside the pan
Plates warmed and dried
Tortelli held on their tray in a single layer, uncovered, until they go in
Chef Tips
Weigh the squeezed greens rather than trusting your hands. Aim for about 7 oz (200 g) from 1 1/2 lb (680 g) raw. If the figure comes out much higher you have not squeezed hard enough, and every problem the filling can develop starts there.
Buy Parmigiano Reggiano in a piece and grate it yourself, and choose one aged around 24 months rather than 36. The older cheese is magnificent on its own but its crystalline texture and sharper profile overwhelm a delicate ricotta filling. Pre grated cheese contains anticaking agents that refuse to melt into the butter emulsion and leave it gritty.
Test one tortello before you cook the rest. Drop it into the simmering water, cook it and eat it. That single piece tells you whether the filling is seasoned enough, whether the sheet is too thick and whether the seal holds, at a stage where all three can still be corrected across the remaining forty seven pieces.
Freeze them on the tray in a single layer until firm, then bag them. They go into the water straight from frozen with about 90 seconds added and behave better than refrigerated ones, which sweat, soften and stick to the tray after a few hours.
Common Mistakes
Underdraining the greens. The fault behind almost every failed tortello d'erbetta. Water trapped in the filling softens the dough from the inside, breaks the seams in the pot and leaves a washed out flavour. Squeeze in a cloth, wait five minutes, squeeze again.
Boiling the tortelli hard. A rolling boil knocks filled pasta against the sides of the pot and forces the seams open, and a burst tortello loses its filling within seconds. Keep the surface barely trembling and cook in batches with room to move.
Sealing air inside. Trapped air expands in the heat and splits the weakest point of the seam. Press outwards from the centre of each mound so the air is driven to the edge before the pasta closes around it.
Browning the butter. Beurre noisette belongs with pumpkin or with sage and ricotta, and its toasted character flattens the fresh green and dairy flavours here. Take the butter off the heat while it is foaming and pale.
Using a food processor on the greens. It turns them into a wet purée that releases yet more water and produces a filling with no texture at all. Chop them with a knife, finely but by hand.
Rolling the sheet too thick. A thick sheet makes the tortello doughy and leaves the sealed double edge chewy and raw tasting. Take it down to about 1/32 inch (0.8 mm), thin enough to see a hand in outline through it.
Wine Pairing
Lambrusco di Sorbara DOC: The Emilian answer, and it must be the dry version. Sorbara is the palest and most delicate of the Lambrusco family, with high acidity, a fine mousse and a note of wild strawberry. The bubbles and the acidity scrub away the butter fat between mouthfuls, which is what a plate dressed in 5 oz of butter needs. Serve cold, around 54°F (12°C).
Colli Bolognesi Pignoletto DOCG: From the hills south of Bologna, the still white locals drink with filled pasta. Its crisp green apple fruit and faintly bitter almond finish keep the plate lively without adding flavours of its own, and that restraint matters with a filling as gentle as ricotta and leaf beet.
Romagna Albana DOCG: Choose the secco, not the passito. Albana has more body and a light phenolic grip that most Italian whites lack, and that texture stands up to melted butter instead of being smothered by it. Its stone fruit and a trace of bitterness on the finish echo the mineral note that good chard leaves behind.
Lugana DOC: From the southern shore of Lake Garda, made from Turbiana, with a broader and slightly waxy texture that matches a buttery dressing unusually well. There is enough acidity to keep things clean and enough weight that the wine is not erased by a cup of Parmigiano. A dependable choice when Lambrusco feels too informal for the occasion.
Franciacorta DOCG: The bottle for San Giovanni night. Traditional method sparkling from Lombardy, with fine persistent bubbles, bright acidity and a bread crust note from time on the lees that sits happily beside the aged cheese. The carbonation lifts the butter off the palate as effectively as the Lambrusco, with more depth.
Storage & Reheating
Freezing is the right way to store tortelli. Spread the shaped pieces on a semola dusted tray in a single layer, freeze until solid, then bag them and keep them for up to 1 month. Cook them from frozen, never thawed, with about 90 seconds added. Raw tortelli last only 4 to 6 hours refrigerated before the filling softens the dough underneath them. The filling on its own keeps 2 days in a sealed container, and the dough keeps 1 day wrapped tightly in the refrigerator.
Cooked and dressed tortelli keep 1 day refrigerated but never improve. Reheat them in a wide pan with 2 tablespoons of water and a small knob of butter, covered, over low heat for 3 minutes, shaking the pan gently rather than stirring, which tears the pasta. A microwave makes the dough rubbery and drives the butter out of the emulsion. Do not freeze them once cooked: the filling separates and the pasta turns to paste on thawing.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 portions of 12 tortelli:
Calories: 810 kcal
Total Fat: 45 g
Saturated Fat: 26 g
Trans Fat: 1 g
Unsaturated Fat: 16 g
Cholesterol: 260 mg
Sodium: 1080 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 63 g
Fiber: 4 g
Total Sugars: 4 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 33 g
Lactose: 2.5 g
Principal micronutrients: calcium, vitamin A, vitamin K, folate, phosphorus, magnesium, iron
These figures are estimates. Most of the salt in the cooking water is discarded, and the calcium figure is unusually high because of the quantity of Parmigiano Reggiano in the filling and on the plate.
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