Being a part of an Italian family has its perks, the main one being food. When my great grandparents immigrated from Italy to the United States in the early 1900s, they brought the country’s mouthwatering cuisine with them. Their exclusive recipe for tortellini soup, a dish containing ring-shaped pasta filled with meat or cheese suspended in broth, is deserving of an award. Three generations later, my parents and I still concoct this soup during the holiday season. Making homemade tortellini soup takes hours of effort and concentration over the course of three days, but it allows my family to spend time together while preparing a dish that we all savor.
The first day is spent making both the dough and the filling. In a large frying pan, my …show more content…
While the sirloin is cooking, my mom and I begin to make the dough by adding six cups of flour, six eggs, and a half cup of water at room temperature into a bowl. Dough that is too wet or too dry can be a disaster to handle, so adding the perfect amount of water is critical. Occasionally my mother and I will add too much water, and the wet dough will stick to every surface it touches. However, dry dough is completely useless, so it is better to add more water than not enough. Using a dough hook attached to a KitchenAid stand mixer on a low speed, the ingredients are combined into a fluffy mass. Any type of electric mixer can be used to complete this step, but this particular model has produced the best results for my family. Our old off-brand stand mixer found the dough too much to handle, so it would spew out flour uncontrollably, coating every surface of the kitchen. After saturating my hands with two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, I am able to shape the dough into one large ball, and afterwards I cover the bowl with ceramic wrap. Once the meat has finished cooking, my dad grates a cup of Asiago cheese that has been aged for …show more content…
My father, mother, and I each have our own jobs during this part of the process. My dad is the instigator of the assembly line. His job is to break the dough ball into smaller clumps and dust them with flour. The exact size of the smaller sections of dough do not matter, but they must be able to fit through a medium-sized manual dough roller. My father uses this machine to thin the sections of dough, but the dough cannot be made too thin otherwise it will break apart. When my dad had to stay late at work, my mom and I had to try to do his job. Neither of us had used the manual dough roller machine before, and even though we eventually figured out how it worked, we were very thankful when my father arrived. My job is to carry the sheet of dough to the mat without letting it fold or tear. If I am unsuccessful, then the dough must be pressed together into a thicker mass and rolled again unless part of the sheet is salvageable. Then, I use a pizza cutter to slice it into small square pieces, each about an inch long. My mom and I share the next step of the process, which is folding. After my mom breaks the large ball of filling into little spheres that can fit in each square of dough, she places each piece of meat onto a slice of dough. We fold the dough in any way that completely covers the filling (since we are not concerned with appearance), and we place each tortellini on a tray to dry
The first day is spent making both the dough and the filling. In a large frying pan, my …show more content…
While the sirloin is cooking, my mom and I begin to make the dough by adding six cups of flour, six eggs, and a half cup of water at room temperature into a bowl. Dough that is too wet or too dry can be a disaster to handle, so adding the perfect amount of water is critical. Occasionally my mother and I will add too much water, and the wet dough will stick to every surface it touches. However, dry dough is completely useless, so it is better to add more water than not enough. Using a dough hook attached to a KitchenAid stand mixer on a low speed, the ingredients are combined into a fluffy mass. Any type of electric mixer can be used to complete this step, but this particular model has produced the best results for my family. Our old off-brand stand mixer found the dough too much to handle, so it would spew out flour uncontrollably, coating every surface of the kitchen. After saturating my hands with two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, I am able to shape the dough into one large ball, and afterwards I cover the bowl with ceramic wrap. Once the meat has finished cooking, my dad grates a cup of Asiago cheese that has been aged for …show more content…
My father, mother, and I each have our own jobs during this part of the process. My dad is the instigator of the assembly line. His job is to break the dough ball into smaller clumps and dust them with flour. The exact size of the smaller sections of dough do not matter, but they must be able to fit through a medium-sized manual dough roller. My father uses this machine to thin the sections of dough, but the dough cannot be made too thin otherwise it will break apart. When my dad had to stay late at work, my mom and I had to try to do his job. Neither of us had used the manual dough roller machine before, and even though we eventually figured out how it worked, we were very thankful when my father arrived. My job is to carry the sheet of dough to the mat without letting it fold or tear. If I am unsuccessful, then the dough must be pressed together into a thicker mass and rolled again unless part of the sheet is salvageable. Then, I use a pizza cutter to slice it into small square pieces, each about an inch long. My mom and I share the next step of the process, which is folding. After my mom breaks the large ball of filling into little spheres that can fit in each square of dough, she places each piece of meat onto a slice of dough. We fold the dough in any way that completely covers the filling (since we are not concerned with appearance), and we place each tortellini on a tray to dry