Beets are beautiful. The color they exude is this deep deep red that tints everything a stained glass pink. I can’t describe beets as elegantly as American novelist Tom Robbins does in Jitterbug Perfume,
“The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.
Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.
The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip…
The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.
The beet was Rasputin’s favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.”
This beet tortellini is so brilliant and tasty. If you serve it with a sauce, the sauce might prevent you from tasting the subtle ricotta filling. I suggest serving without sauce, or maybe a bit of olive oil. You really can’t go wrong with the filling. Some other ideas I had for the filling were mushroom and rosemary, or maybe dill and something else? Tortellini is sometimes served with a meaty sauce, but I don’t think it’s necessary, whether you are vegetarian or not. When you make tortellini from scratch, you want to taste your hard earned pasta, not the sauce!
Ingredients:
- 1 medium beet
- 3 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 3 cups or 382 grams all purpose flour
- 12 oz fresh ricotta
- 3/4 cup grated parmesan
- 1/4 cup grated pecorino
- pinch of nutmeg
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, minced
- 3 tbsp basil, minced
Directions:
- Roast the beet at 350F for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until a fork is easily inserted. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely, in the fridge.
- Puree the beets in a food processor. In a bowl, stir pureed beets, eggs, yolk, olive oil, and salt, until smooth.
- Make a well in the flour and pour in the liquid. Slowly incorporate flour with a fork, then use a bench scraper to fold and cut in the flour. Knead for 10 minutes, or until smooth. Wrap and rest for at least 2 hours in the fridge.
- For the filling, mix cheeses, spices, tomato, and basil until incorporated. Store in the fridge to keep cold.
- To assemble the tortellini, roll out the pasta dough, preferably with a pasta machine, and cut into 3-inch diameter rounds. Place about a teaspoon or more of filling in the center. Use a bit of water to wet half the edge of the round. Fold the dough over and use your pinkies to seal in the filling, while pressing the edges together. Take the two ends, dab one with water, and fold them to meet at the center. Refer to this recipe for a visual description of this method.
- Boil the tortellini in heavily salted water until they float, about 1 to 2 minutes.
- Serve immediately with some olive oil, or without sauce, enjoy!
