Technical Guide to Tortelli with Butter and Sage

Rinse and dry fresh spinach leaves, and boil in salted water. Remove from heat,  drain well, and squeeze out excess liquid with your hands. Place ricotta in a medium mixing  bowl, set aside.  

Heat medium-sautè pan, coat bottom with olive oil, add spinach and sautè for several  minutes, adjusting to taste with salt. Remove from heat.  

Add sautèed spinach to ricotta, add in freshly grated Parmesan cheese and mix well  until the blend is firm and well-amalgamated. There should be no excess liquid. Season to taste with salt.

In a medium bowl, blend semola flour with eggs, knead to reach a smooth, soft  consistency that holds its shape when formed into a ball.  

Continue kneading dough with your palm on a floured working space. Knead until  dough is soft, elastic, and compact. Shape dough into a ball, cover with plastic wrap.  Rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.  

Remove plastic wrap, continue kneading dough while shaping into a rectangle  approximately the width of your pasta machine. Begin rolling out dough using a prepared pasta machine, generously dusting the machine with semola to prevent dough  from sticking. Flatten dough through machine until desired thickness is reached,  adjusting knobs to make dough thinner with each passage.  

Dust working space well with semola. Place the pasta sheet on top of the work space, and  with a round pasta cutter, cut individual shapes, being sure to cut dough as neatly as  possible without creating waste.  

With a pastry brush, gently brush water on top of each shape. Place a small teaspoon of  filling slightly off-center on each shape. Cover shape by lifting up the larger side and  cover filling entirely. Using fingers, gently press down around filling, eliminating as  much air as possible. Press borders down firmly to seal. Join two points of each  sealed pasta shape to create tortello form. Dust tray with semola flour, and place completed tortelli shapes on top

Cook tortelli in a large pot of salted water for 3-4 minutes. Set aside a bit of cooking  liquid to add to the butter blend. In a medium sautè pan, melt butter. Add sage leaves and  reserved cooking liquid from pasta. Allow to cook for a few minutes, until the sauce is  thickened but not too dense. Add cooked tortelli to sauce, allow to blend together a  few moments, place onto individual serving plates and dust with additional Parmesan. Serve hot.