Ricotta Tortellini, Tomato, Eggplant Fritto and Tomato Water - Chef Recipe by Rey Ambas

Ingredients

10 pieces Roma tomato
1 eggplant
1 bunch thyme
1 lemon
250 g ricotta

Pasta dough:

200 g double O pasta flour
100 g fine semolina
50 g egg yolk
65 g whole egg
Pinch fine salt

Method

To make the pasta dough, you can use a kitchen aid mixer to form the dough. If you do not have a kitchen aid mixer, it can be easily made by hand.

In a large-sized mixing bowl, add your pasta flour and semolina and a small pinch of salt and mix until well combined. Keep aside while you prepare your eggs. In a separate bowl, weigh out your eggs accordingly, the yolk and whole eggs can be mixed together. Gently mix up your eggs into an egg wash using a fork, making sure there is no streak of egg whites, it should be nice and yellow and well combined.

With the flour mixture, create a small well in the middle and then gently pour the egg yolks in the centre of the well. Using a fork, (or with your hands) slowly drag the flour into the centre of the well, mixing in the egg mixture. You will need to get your hands dirty and knead the flour together with the egg until a ball is formed. It will tend to be sticky at the start of the kneading but keep kneading until it slowly forms a dough and shape it into a ball. You can add an extra small amount of pasta flour just to use for dusting and helping with the shaping of the dough.

When the dough is formed into a smooth consistency, put it in a clean bowl and cover with cling film and let it rest in the fridge. Ideally you can make the dough at least a day ahead, but you can use it after a few hours it has rested.

While the egg dough is resting, wash the tomatoes, lemon and eggplant. Put the ricotta into a bowl, then zest the lemon and put with the ricotta, add some thyme leaves, salt and pepper into the mixture and mix until well combined. Taste the mix if it needs a bit more salt.

Cut 8 pieces of the tomatoes into even cubes, skin on and core attached. place into a blender with 100mL cold water and a pinch of salt. Blend the tomatoes for 5 seconds on medium speed. Then strain the liquid through a fine sieve, keeping the clear, pink tomato water that comes out of the sieve.

Taste the tomato water, season with salt, pepper and a small amount of lemon juice to help lift the flavour, Keep the water aside for later. With your eggplant, finely dice into small even cubes. You will only need half of an eggplant if it is large. keep that aside. With the remaining tomatoes, cut in half, take out the core of the tomato so it becomes like a petal, only use the flesh of the tomato, not the pulp. Finely dice the tomato petals into small even cubes, then set aside.

You will need a pasta machine to roll out the pasta dough into a thin sheet, if you do not have a pasta machine, a dough roller is okay to use, also some semolina is good to keep for dusting and helping fold the pasta. Keep rolling it through the pasta machine until you can see the shades of your fingers, (it should be thin but not super thin that it breaks).

Once you are comfortable with the pasta, cut into a circle shape, using a pasta cutter or even a small cup. Fill the centre of the circle with a small dollop of the ricotta filling. Then fold it over to a half moon shape. Using thumbs and fingers, connect the two ends together in a round rotation forming a little tortellini shape.

Note you can use a small amount of water to help close the pasta by just wetting the dough with a tiny amount of water when you are shaping the tortellini. Continue this process until you have 5-6 pieces of tortellini.

Boil a good amount of water in a large pot, add a big pinch of salt. Bring the water to a boil. With the eggplant, sauté it in another pan on medium heat with a nice amount of olive oil and a small amount of thyme leaves. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and stir until it becomes lightly caramelised and cooked through.

Put in your diced tomatoes and mix until well combined. When the water is boiling, place your pasta inside the water and cook for about 4-5 minutes, or until they are soft and cooked.

In the meantime, warm up the tomato water in a smaller pot just until it boils. Once the pasta is cooked, take it out of the water and place it into a bowl and drizzle a small amount of olive oil to dress the tortellini.

In a serving bowl, place sauteed eggplant and tomato on the bottom, then place tortellini on top of the vegetables. Then pour over warm tomato water just until half the tortellini is covered. Sprinkle some salt flakes, cracked pepper, thyme leaves and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil on top of the dish and it's ready to eat!

Recipe provided by Jonah's