Maria’s sweet baked chestnut tortelli (tortelli dolci di castagne)

Brilliant pasta maker, Maria from Faenza in Emilia Romagna, is one of our ‘star grannies’ who is happy to be interviewed by TV crews from around the world. She has shared several recipes and this is her Christmas special: tortelli filled with chestnut puree, chocolate and jam, baked, then dunked in sapa.

Credit: Hardie Grant Books / Lizzie Mayson

• makes

  30

• prep

  35 minutes

• cook

  1:25 hour

• difficulty

  Mid

(See Maria making the tortelli here). 

Ingredients

For the chestnut puree

• 150 g dried chestnuts
• ¼ orange, peel on
• 1 small slice of candied citron lemon
• 10 g caster (superfine) sugar

For the orange (candito) sauce

• juice and peel (no white pith) of 1 orange (unwaxed)
• 50 g caster (superfine) sugar
• 3 tsp sapa (also known as vincotto - see Note), plus extra to serve
• 3 tsp dark rum

For the filling

• 250 g boiled and puréed chestnuts (above)
• Orange Sauce (above)
• 2 g very finely ground coffee, not instant powder
• 8 g unsweetened cocoa powder
• 50 g good-quality plum jam
• 50 g caster (superfine) sugar
• grated zest of ½ lemon (unwaxed)

For the pastry dough

• 250 g (scant 1 ⅔ cups) 00 flour
• 9 g baking powder (to make it self-raising)
• 100 g caster sugar
• grated zest of ½ lemon and ½ orange (unwaxed)
• pinch of salt
• 25 g cold free-range lard (or butter)
• 35 g butter
• 1 egg, beaten
• splash of milk, if needed

Chilling time: 1-2 hours (the filling and dough can also be made ahead of time and chilled overnight).

Instructions

1. First, make the chestnut puree. Place the dried chestnuts in a saucepan and just cover them with water. Add the orange and candied citron. If you don’t have the latter, then add a tablespoon of marmalade instead of the orange and lemon. Bring to a simmer and cook for 1 hour or so, until the chestnuts are tender. You may need to top the pan up with water occasionally. Remove from the heat and let them cool completely, then drain them and pass them through a food mill with the fruit. This is the best gadget for the job because the resulting puree is fluffy; a food processor gives a denser texture.
2. To make the orange sauce, bring a small pan of water with a pinch of salt to the boil, then add the peel and blanch for 5 minutes. Discard this water and repeat the blanching step, but this time with unsalted water. Throw away the water and dice the skin as finely as possible. Return the skin to the small pan, add the orange juice, sugar, sapa and rum and cook over a low heat for about 5 minutes until thick and syrupy. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
3. To make the filling, mix the cold pureed chestnuts and orange sauce together in a bowl with the other ingredients. You can now leave this overnight, covered, in the fridge. If time is not on your side, crack on.
4. To make the dough, mix together the flour, baking powder, sugar, zests and salt in a large bowl. Add the lard and butter (or just 60 g butter) and rub the mix together with your fingertips to obtain a rough sandy consistency. Add the egg and knead the dough for 2 minutes until it holds together. If the dough has a hard time coming together, add a tablespoon of milk to help.
5. Cover the dough so it won’t dry out in the fridge, and chill it until it is firm (1–2 hours). You can make this the day before, put in the fridge and remove it for 40 minutes or so before rolling out, to allow it to come to room temperature.
6. Preheat the oven to 180°C and line two baking trays with parchment paper.
7. Roll out the chilled dough to a thickness of 2 mm and stamp out 30 rounds with a 7–8 cm diameter pastry cutter. Place a tsp of the filling in the middle of a disc and gently fold up the sides and hold it like a taco in one hand. Pleat a seam by alternately crimping one side over the other. Watch Maria’s video to see how she does it! If this is too complicated, it will still taste the same if you make half-moon shapes with a simple pinched-closed edge. Repeat with the remaining discs and filling. Place each tortello on a lined baking tray, suitably spaced out.
8. Bake the tortelli in the oven for 20 minutes, until they are nice and golden.
9. Remove from the oven and when they have cooled a bit, pour some sapa into a small bowl and either dunk or brush them with syrup.

Notes

• Sapa is a sweet syrup made by reducing grape must – freshly crushed grapes that still includes the skin, seeds and pulp. Sapa has several names, including vincotto and mosto cotto and, while you won’t find it in your local supermarket, it’s available online and probably in your local Italian deli.

• Make the filling the day before you bake the tortelli if you can, as this improves its flavour.

Recipe and image from Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking by Vicky Bennison (Hardie Grant Books, RRP $45 AUD, available in-stores nationally). Photography: Lizzie Mayson

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.

(See Maria making the tortelli here).