Ricotta and Spinach Tortelloni with Brown Butter, Sage and Parmesan

This is a fast, easy, comfort food recipe and the sauce goes with just about any kind of pasta. The recipe I used is Mark Bittman’s Pasta With Butter, Sage and Parmesan from his Bitten blog in the NY Times, but with the following modifications:

1. Used one 9 oz. package of grocery-store-prepared ricotta cheese and spinach tortelloni instead of one pound of ziti, but kept the rest of the recipe quantities the same. Using a tortelloni makes the dish a little more substantial if you’re not going to add meat. Using a pre-made tortelloni or ravioli keeps this dish in the quick-and-easy category.

2. Used less sage. The original recipe calls for 30 fresh sage leaves and I reduced it to 8. I also cut them into tiny pieces instead of using whole leaves as in the original recipe. A little sage goes a long way and I don’t like getting large chunks of sage leaf in a bite of pasta.

3. Added less water for the sauce. I used about ½ cup instead of the ¾ initially called for and the sauce was verging on too watery.

This dish turned out well. Cutting up the sage and using less of it resulted in a subtle, smooth sage flavor. A few leftover sage leaves made a simple garnish.

Reader's Comments

1. 

   excellent condiment for palmarielli
2. palmariello on 11 Sep 2008 4:33 am