Tortellini alla Panna

You would be hard-pressed to find a more perfect pairing than meat-filled tortellini in a rich cream sauce. This dish is a specialty of the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Serves 4-6 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 1-1/2 cups heavy cream salt and pepper to taste 1 pound of tortellini 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese

1.		Add the butter, cream, salt and pepper to a large sauté pan, turn the heat on to medium and melt the butter into the cream. Bring to a simmer and cook until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Take off the heat.
2.		Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the tortellini. Cook until the tortellini are slightly underdone, 3-5 minutes. Drain well.
3.		Place pan with butter and cream back over medium heat. Add the tortellini and Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese and stir gently until cheese is melted and tortellini are well coated with the sauce. Transfer to warm pasta bowls and serve.




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Homemade Tortellini
Last week I posted a recipe for Tortellini Pasticcio. What I did not mention in that post is that the tortellini I used were homemade. I had still been tweaking the recipe for the filling and wanted to wait until I settled on a final combination of meats before I shared it. The filling that I prefer contains ground veal with some pancetta.

Tortellini Pasticchio
Tortellini alla Panna is a classic Northern Italian preparation of meat filled Tortellini tossed in a cream sauce. My father used to serve a Tortellini Pasticcio that consisted of Tortellini alla Panna layered with Bolognese Sauce and then baked in the oven. I have been wanting to make this at home for a quite a while, but for whatever reason never got around to it until now. While eating it my wife had one question for me, "Why have we never had this before?"

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