Sunday, February 1, 2009

Easy spinach, chicken and ricotta tortelloni



These tortelloni are surprisingly easy to make. They aren't quite "official" tortelloni, because the dough is square instead of round, and because I used wonton skins instead of semolina pasta dough. But they work well enough, and they're easy.

The filling:

4 oz. cooked chicken. I used the frozen cooked chicken from Trader Joe's.
1/2 bag frozen chopped spinach
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
16-oz. container ricotta (I used fat free and it worked fine)
Grated parmesan cheese, about 3-4 tablespoons
salt & pepper to taste.

Defrost the spinach and squeeze out excess moisture. Cut chicken into chunks.
Heat some olive oil in a frypan and lightly saute the garlic with the spinach. Remove from heat and put in food processor with the chicken. Pulse until well chopped, almost to a paste. Remove from food processor and add ricotta, parmesan, salt, pepper. Mix till well blended.

To make the tortelloni, open a package of wonton skins. On each skin, brush all 4 edges with beaten egg. Put about 1 rounded teaspoon of filling in the center. Fold into a triangle, press to seal, then press the two sealed edges again with a fork. Squeeze out all air pockets if you can. Then pinch the long center to wrap the points as shown. What you end up with will look like a wonton. Put a damp towel over the finished tortelloni until you're ready to cook them. Save whatever filling you have left to make chicken florentine later in the week.

To cook, boil water in a wok or similar pan. Add tortelloni gently and simmer -- do not rolling boil -- about 3 minutes. Remove from pot with slotted spoon.

These are good with just some good marinara sauce and freshly grated parmesan.

(cross posted at Brilliant at Breakfast)

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