Tortelli Maremmani with ricotta and spinach

Originally made with borage gathered from fields, today these tortelli are filled with spinach and ricotta, and sometimes seasoned with marjoram.

Waiting for tomorrow’s info on the next Cook Along, here’s one of the two recipes we will be making together on Sunday.

---

This was the favorite fresh pasta in my home for decades. Before tortelli mugellani, or other fresh pasta parcels with the most diverse seasonal fillings, before tagliolini pasta as well, these Maremma tortelli were the pasta dish we would have during a festivity, whether a birthday or Christmas, or any given Sunday family lunch. My grandmother made them from scratch using a grooved pasta cutter and filling them plentifully, making sure to leave a wide border around them. Then she would carry them on a large wooden tray made by my grandfather Biagio and drop them in boiling water, to cook until they rose to the water’s surface.

Today they are still my favorite, while Tommaso continues to favor the potato-filled Mugello variety—understandably, given his Mugello origins.

We meet each other halfway with the sauce: butter and sage fried until crunchy with a dusting of pecorino cheese. I found Ilena’s recipe reassuring, so similar it was to my grandmother’s. For years I had been eating authentic tortelli, unaware of just how much tradition that Sunday plate of pasta carried with it.

RECIPE - TORTELLI MAREMMANI, fresh pasta parcels stuffed with ricotta and spinach

Originally made with borage gathered from fields, today these tortelli are filled with spinach and ricotta, and sometimes seasoned with marjoram.

Learn everything about fresh pasta here:

[VIDEO] Replay the Fresh Egg Pasta Cook-Along