Marco Martini's tortello is made with mortadella, white pizza, and pistachios. The ‘Pizza e Mortazza’ dish is nostalgic; it reminisces on the mid-morning snack of all Roman schoolchildren in their little uniforms. That’s when the dish became elegant. And (Michelin) starred.
This is one of the cult dishes by Marco Martini, who became a chef after his rugby past, nevertheless re-emerging with his “locker room" attitude, which makes him consider his collaborators first of all as a team. His dishes are apparently simple, found among the traditions of Rome – even ennobling them. His recipe for tortelli has even grown along with him over the years, perhaps reaching its perfection only recently. Martini’s tortello is rich and crisp to the right point with the aroma of Roman white pizza in the broth – plus the mortadella almost explodes in your mouth when you bite into the dough. Really, it’s perfection in a mouthful.
The Recipe: Tortellini with Mortadella, White Pizza and Pistachios
Serves 4
Ingredients:
For the pasta
2 cups flour
12 oz egg yolk
A pinch of salt
11 oz mortadella
In a bowl, mix the flour with a pinch of salt and the eggs, a little at a time, to create a smooth dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest 10 minutes before rolling out.
In the meantime, prepare the filling. Cut the mortadella into slices (not too thick). Remove the black pepper and the excess fat from the mortadella from both the black pepper berries and the excess fat. Transfer ingredients to a disposable sac à poche to form the ravioli, after thinly rolling out the dough.
For the white pizza broth
4 cups water
9 oz Roman white pizza
1 tsp salt
Kitchen twine
Cotton canvas with 40×40 cm microns
Heat the pizza in the oven for 10 minutes at 350°F after cutting it into 5×5 cm squares; this will make it crunchy. Then wrap the pizza in a tightly knit cloth, tying it with string to dip it into the pot with salted water. Cook for 25 minutes over medium heat to extract all the flavor from the pizza. Drain everything and filter to obtain the pizza broth, which should be served separately at the table in a pot.
Cook the tortelli in boiling salted water. Drain them al dente and transfer to a hot pan with a drizzle of oil to form a golden crust. Place the ravioli on the bottom of a plate; add the whole salted pistachios (5 per serving) and serve with the stock pot on the side, to be poured directly onto the dish at the table.