A Family Tradition: Wild Boar Tortellini

Claude, from the Tablonomie blog, welcomes us into his family kitchen today to share how he makes delicious wild boar tortellini, a Sunday family meal staple in his home.

It’s a gloomy, rainy autumn Sunday.

And you have some leftovers from a wonderful roast… wild boar, for example.

And a family with nothing to do…

So, before everyone turns to video games, I suggest making some homemade pasta.

Everyone pitches in: kids, parents, guests, and why not, the neighbors too.

Because making pasta from scratch at home is one of the easiest and most rewarding culinary activities you can enjoy together.

You might object: “But I need special equipment, fancy ingredients… and besides, you can only make real pasta in Italy!”

Wrong. Completely wrong.

To make pasta magic happen, all you need is a rolling pin and a kitchen knife. No special equipment required.

As for the ingredients, any flour will do, along with a few eggs, a little olive oil if you have some, and perhaps a splash of water. That’s all it takes to make pasta as Italian as Parmesan itself.

But let’s get back to our wild boar tortellini.

That particular Sunday, I had some leftover haunch from a roast served a few days earlier. Excellent meat, too.

I had three (grown-up) kids around me with time on their hands. “Come on, let’s make ravioli for dinner.” That was all it took. Before long, everyone was in the kitchen.

Yes, these young people enjoy cooking, and they know their way around the kitchen.

And yes, I happen to own a pasta machine, along with a $2 crimped pastry wheel for cutting the pasta.

And, of course, flour and eggs.

While some got started on the dough, the rest of us prepared the filling.

That meant raiding the fridge a little. Along with the leftover wild boar, we found some pork fat, ricotta, Parmesan, a few herbs, and a couple of special ingredients.

If you're tempted, you'll find the ingredient list here.

We chopped, seared, and mixed everything together while the other team worked the dough: flour piled up like a volcano, with a crater in the middle filled with lightly beaten eggs.

A drop of olive oil, and plenty of elbow grease.

They kneaded everything by hand until they had a smooth, shiny ball of dough.

An hour had gone by. The atmosphere was warm, cheerful, and… messy.

Because, of course, Murphy’s Law dictates that the filling will spill out of the pan and flour will end up everywhere.

That only added to the fun, especially since it was now time to flour the countertop and roll out the dough.

This is THE tricky part, especially when using a pasta machine.

So we cheated a little and left our pasta sheets a bit thicker than those legendary strands of angel hair.

The most fun part was when everyone joined in to fill, fold, and cut our tortellini.

We had to get a little creative to hide a few imperfect seals and smudges of filling.

By the end of the second hour, our little pasta parcels were standing proudly at attention across the countertop.

While they rested in military formation, the happy family washed their hands, brushed off their clothes, and uncorked a good bottle of Prosecco. A proper aperitivo for such magnificent pasta.

As the water heated up for our little soldiers, someone suddenly shouted, “We forgot the sauce!”

Thankfully, it only takes a few minutes to prepare. After one final sprint, the sauce was ready just as the tortellini were cooked.

As luck would have it, I still had a truffle in the fridge and a bottle of Barolo in the cellar. The perfect finishing touches to a wonderful afternoon with the family and a truly successful Italian feast.

For your own rainy Sundays at home, you can find the full recipe for these tortellini on my blog, Tablonomie – Neo-Classical Cooking.

Read also: The Art of Italian Entertaining: The Complete Guide to Creating Unforgettable Dinner Parties