Or, now my freezer has fancy homemade pasta in it.
This idea came together through a series of accidents. I’ve always wanted to make my own tortellini. I remember seeing Heidi Swanson make dumplings of some sort on her blog (Wow, she has a ton of dumpling recipes up there! I’m jealous.) Then I was at the supermarket looking for egg roll wrappers to creatively eliminate some leftovers, and I saw these little mini guys. An impulse buy later, and I just kind of threw some things in a pan and got going. In the kitchen, I often think and plan less that I do in my other life. My hands just do things with half an idea to lead the way, and after some intuition and a bit of chopping, we get dinner. I don’t know how I got to this state of being in the kitchen, but I like it very much. It is extremely satisfying and good for the soul to make cool things, especially when the rest of your life is either (a) spent up in your head, like many academic types, or (b) spent doing exhausting and repetitive labor of whatever sort you have to do.
Now, these are a bit repetitive, but if you’re a learner like I am, then that is no bad thing. I got better at shaping and pressing as I went along. And it was kind of meditative, if I can say that without making you want to punch me. Absorbing enough to eliminate mind-wandering, satisfying (I’m making tortellini!), and rewarding in the end (you get to eat tortellini!). Not least of the rewards is that I now have a freezer full of tortellini to pull out at the end of a day and make a quick meal.
Serve these with a basic tomato sauce, with a light dusting of olive oil and grated cheese, or, as I did, in a bowl of broth with a squeeze of lemon. It was so good that I forgot to take a photo.
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ an onion, finely diced
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 cup of frozen peas (I use baby peas)
- 5 oz or about half a package of snap peas, chopped
- ¼ cup plain yogurt
- ½ cup grated cheese (I used a blend of parmesan, asiago, fontina, and provolone)
- salt and pepper
- won ton wrappers from the chilled case in your supermarket
- Add olive oil to a skillet heater over medium-high heat. When hot, add the onion and garlic and stir until they start to color. Add the frozen peas, and snap peas and stir for a few minutes, just until starting to soften.
- Take half of the mixture from the pan and place it in a bowl. Add the yogurt and blend with an immersion blender until you create a coarse puree. Add the puree back to the pan, add the cheese, and mix everything together. Season with salt and pepper to taste. This is the filing.
- Lay wonton wrappers out on a board in a kind of assembly line and cover the remaining wrappers. You will quickly sense how many wrappers you can work with at one time before they dry out and cause cracking problems.
- Fill a small bowl with water. Using a pastry brush if you have one, or your fingers if you don't, moisten the outside edges of each wrapper. (I did rows of 4-5 at a time.)
- Place a ¼ - ½ teaspoon sized amount of filing in one corner of each moistened wrapper.
- Fold over the corner that is opposite from the filling, and press the corners together to seal.
- Using both hands, press down the edges of the tortellino, using your fingers to define and shape the filling and ensure the filling stays inside and the edges are sealed.
- Do a final press along the edges to ensure a good seal, then fold the "wings" over and around a finger until they meet. Press to seal.
- Let the tortellini dry out for about 20 minutes, then flash freeze on a plate or baking sheet. Store in the freezer for up to 3 months.