' SAND CRAB, PUMPKIN & RICOTTA TORTELLINI .'

Tortellini filled with Sand Crab , Queensland Blue pumpkin & Lemon ricotta with Lemon butter sauce , sun-dried tomatoes , salted caper berries , sage leaves and shaved parmesan cheese.

                           I've seen this combination done years ago with these great local Queensland ingredients but only served as a lasagne with a béchamel sauce and without the sun-dried tomatoes, capers, sage and the lemon butter sauce. This is a light tasty treat to serve, show casing Queensland or should I say encasing the Queensland filling in an egg pasta fused with Mediterranean flavoured sauce.
                           To make this I began with the pasta dough bringing together '00' flour and eggs to form a dough, kneading until smooth before wrapping in clear film and placing in a cool place to rest for an hour. While the dough was resting I wrapped cut pumpkin pieces in foil and placed into a 200 deg.c. oven until soft and tender, I then removed the pumpkin from the oven and the foil and mashed them, then setting aside for later. In the mean time a batch of lemon ricotta was made using my usual technique explained in earlier posts, this was then placed in the fridge to chill. For the sand crab, which was bought cooked already I simply de-shelled the crab removing all the meat of which I rinsed in water and shredded. In a bowl I mixed the crab, pumpkin and the ricotta together and set aside. I then rolled the pasta dough out to around 2 mm thick and cut out some rounds with an upturned glass, in the centre of each pasta round I placed a teaspoon of filling and brushed the edges of the pasta with water. Folding the round in my hands in half to form a semi circle and pinching the edges together to seal. The two bottom points of the half circle were then bent around and joined to form the tortellini. I did this with the remaining pasta circles before placing them into salted rolling boiling water and cooking for 3-5 minutes, the tortellini were then drained and set aside. In a saucepan I melted some butter with chopped sun-dried tomatoes and chopped sage. To this I added the tortellini and some lemon juice and coated the pasta.                              
                          To serve I placed three tortellini in a row in the centre of the plate with the middle pasta laying own flat. I then spooned the lemon butter sauce over the top making sure to dish out some of the sun-dried tomatoes and chopped sage. I then scattered some persian blue sea salted caper berries, shaved some parmesan cheese and on the middle pasta placed fresh sage leaves on top to garnish.