Tortelli D'erbetta

Directions

1. Fresh Pasta Dough
2. To learn about making fresh pasta, read this article... https://food52.com/blog/15912-how-to-make-fresh-pasta-dough-like-a-chef

1. Tortelli D'erbetta and Assembly
2. Set a large skillet over medium heat and melt 1 tablespoon of the butter. When it begins to sizzle, cook the chard, stirring occasionally, until it just begins to wilt down. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Remove the skillet from the heat. Transfer the cooked chard to a plate and let cool slightly.
3. Squeeze any excess liquid out of the chard. Discard the excess liquid. Transfer the chard to a cutting board and finely chop.
4. Transfer the finely chopped chard to a large bowl. Add the ricotta, Parmigiano, marjoram, and lemon juice. Add a pinch of salt and a generous amount of black pepper. Mix with a rubber spatula and taste. Adjust with more salt, pepper, Parmigiano, or lemon juice as necessary. Everybody is different, so adjust the quantities until you are happy with the taste. Transfer the filling to a pastry bag.
5. Roll out your pasta dough. You will likely need to work in batches. Every pasta machine is different, so here is my advice: Do not roll it out to the absolute thinnest setting, but the "almost thinnest" setting. Make sure the surface you're working on is lightly coated in bench flour. You don't want to make perfect tortelli and then have them stick to the table and rip.
6. When you have a sheet of thin, rolled out dough in front of you, use the pastry bag to dollop the filling. The dollops should be equivalent to about 1 tablespoon of filling. The dollops should be spread about 1 inch apart. And most importantly of all, do not put the dollop in the exact center of the dough. Looking at the dough, it will be a rectangle that is very long and about 6 inches in width; your dollop should be near the bottom of the dough, when considering the dough width-wise. The top half of the dough should be empty.
7. Fold the top half of the dough over the dollops, covering the bottom half of the dough. Cup your hands around the filling to press the dough together and squeeze out any pockets of air. Use a pasta cutter to cut a rectangular shape around each dollop of filling (there will be some dough scraps; discard them). You should now have something that looks like a ravioli. To form the tortelli, you will keep three sides of the "ravioli" untouched. The fourth side, you will create a U shape by pressing inward with your index finger. Next, take the two corners at the top of the U shape, and bring them together, pinching them together so that the dough fuses tight. You should have something that looks like a tortelli. You can place the tortelli on a parchment-lined sheet tray and freeze them (after one day in the freezer, you can transfer them from the sheet try to a plastic bag). Or, you can cook them immediately.
8. Set a large pot of water on high heat. When the water is boiling, add enough salt so that the pasta water tastes like the ocean. Set a large skillet over low heat. Add the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter. Boil the tortelli for 2 or 3 minutes. If they have been previously frozen, add another couple of minutes. You should consider cooking the tortelli in batches; they are delicate, and overcrowding the pot might result in a lot of burst tortelli. When the tortelli are nearly cooked, add ¼ cup of the pasta water to the skillet with the butter. Increase the heat under the skillet to medium-high, and swirl the pasta water with the butter. Delicately transfer the tortelli from the pot of water to the skillet. Gently swirl the tortelli around in the butter sauce. The sauce should look creamy and emulsified. Serve the tortelli on a plate with a drizzle of sauce, and garnish with finely grated Parmigiano and black pepper. Enjoy.