A 1.2 mm sheet rather than 0.9 mm, because this filling is soft and sweet and needs a slightly firmer wall — and because the amaretti in the filling would punch through a thinner one.
Flours
Doppio Zero soft wheat (00)
Egg
Whole eggs and vegetable purée
Water
53%
Sheet
1.2 mm
Form
40 mm
Drying
Flat on a tray · 2h
Work
90 min + 30 min rest
Serves
5
1The ratio
Pumpkin Agnolotti with Amaretti, Sheet at Notch 7 — 5 portions
Flour
g
baker’s %
Doppio Zero soft wheat (00)
400
100%
Egg
3 whole eggs
53%
purée
60
15%
olive oil
10
3%
salt
4
1%
Dough weight
624 g
53% Water
Per portion ≈ 125 g. Every ratio on this site is a baker’s percentage against the flour weight.
2The roller
mm
14.8 mm
24.2 mm
33.4 mm
42.6 mm
52 mm
61.6 mm
71.2 mm
80.9 mm
90.6 mm
Notch by notch1 → 2 → 3 → 5 → 6 → 7
Cut at 7 (1.2 mm) → 40 mm Form
3The filling
Roast pumpkin, amaretti and parmigiano
Flour
700 g delica or butternut pumpkin, cut in 3 cm wedges
90 g parmigiano, grated
50 g amaretti, crushed to a coarse powder
1 egg yolk
Nutmeg, 5 g salt, white pepper
15 g butter
Method
Roast the pumpkin skin-side down at 210 °C for 35 minutes, until a knife slides in with no resistance. Roasting, not boiling: boiled pumpkin carries 20% more water and the filling will not hold.
Scrape the flesh out and dry it in a pan over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring, until it pulls away from the sides.
Mash, then beat in the parmigiano, yolk, butter, nutmeg and salt. Cool completely.
Fold in the crushed amaretti last, so they stay crunchy in the filling rather than dissolving.
Sauce for this
Pumpkin, amaretti and butter
南瓜、阿玛雷蒂与黄油
Pumpkin, amaretti and butter is the only sauce here that mirrors the filling instead of contrasting with it, and that is the point — a second, sharper amaretti note goes on at the table.
Holds 4% butter
Flour
400 g delica or butternut pumpkin, cut in 2 cm cubes
60 g amaretti biscuits, crushed
70 g butter
6 sage leaves
40 g parmigiano
Nutmeg, salt, white pepper
Method
Roast the pumpkin at 200 °C for 25 minutes until the edges caramelise. Mash roughly; leave some lumps.
Melt the butter with the sage until it smells of hazelnuts.
Fold the pumpkin through the butter, then loosen with pasta water into a sauce that still has body.
Off the heat, add the parmigiano, then the crushed amaretti at the very last second.
Amaretti go in at the table, not in the pan. Thirty seconds of heat and their almond bitterness turns soapy.
Roasting the water out of the pumpkin
Boiled pumpkin is about 92% water. Roasted and then dried in a pan it drops to around 78%, and that 14-point difference is what decides whether the agnolotti hold their shape or slump into flat cushions on the tray.
Delica and butternut are the two varieties worth using. A carving pumpkin has stringy flesh and twice the water; it makes a filling that weeps within an hour.
The amaretti question
Amaretti are there for bitterness and crunch, not sweetness. Without them this filling is a one-note sugar bomb, and the classic complaint about pumpkin agnolotti — that it tastes like dessert — is exactly what they prevent.
Crush them to a coarse powder with a rolling pin, not in a processor. A processor takes them to paste, and paste dissolves into the pumpkin within ten minutes.
Agnolotti, not ravioli
Agnolotti are made from a single long strip: pipe a line of filling 12 mm from the near edge, fold the far edge over, press, then pinch the strip every 40 mm to make individual parcels and cut between the pinches with a wheel.
The pinched pleats are the point. They close the parcel at both ends without a top seam, so there is no seam for steam to find.
Cut with a fluted wheel so the two ends have a ruffled edge, which is what holds the sauce. A straight cut lets the butter slide off.
Serving them with a second hit of amaretti
Three minutes in simmering water, then into the butter. Finish with a second, fresh scatter of crushed amaretti on the plate — the cooked ones have gone soft, and the contrast between the two is the best thing about this dish.
Add a few drops of aged balsamic if the pumpkin is very sweet. It sounds like a trick and it works: acid and bitterness are what keep a sweet squash filling from tasting like baby food.
Drying
Tray them on semolina with the pleats facing up and 2 cm between parcels.
Air-dry 2 hours; pumpkin filling is heavy and needs the skin to set before it is moved.
Lift them with a fish slice, never with your fingers, or you will stretch the pinched ends.
Frozen on the tray then bagged, they hold six weeks.
Keeping 48 hours in the fridge, six weeks frozen. Cooked agnolotti do not reheat: the filling goes grainy and the pleats stiffen into hard nubs.
When it goes wrong
Parcels collapse on the tray
Because Pumpkin not dried enough after roasting.
Do this Dry the mash in a pan for 5 minutes. It is ready when a spoon dragged through leaves a clean trench that holds.
Filling squirts out at the cut
Because Too much filling on the strip, or the fold was not pressed before pinching.
Do this Keep the line of filling to a 14 mm bead, and press the whole length flat with the side of your hand before pinching.
Agnolotti taste flat and sweet
Because No acid anywhere in the dish.
Do this Aged balsamic on the plate, or a squeeze of lemon in the butter off the heat.
Board & Pin
