Trattoria Emilia is a traditional Italian restaurant located on Little Collins Street in the heart of Melbourne. Conga Foods supplies the restaurant with a range of high-quality products including Zanetti Parmigiana-Reggiano and Gran Soresina Grana Padano PDO cheeses, which are key ingredients in the venue’s signature dish.
Chef and Owner Francesco Rota’s tortelloni sees pasta filled with prosciutto and mortadella, butter and sage covered in a parmesan sauce and dressed with Acecto balsamic. “Our restaurant is a traditional Italian restaurant where we showcase the traditional produce of Emilia-Romagna,” says the chef.
To make the dish, Rota begins by combining 1 litre of cream with 250g of Grana Padano, 250g of Parmigiana-Reggiano and a pinch of salt before heating to 65 degrees. The sauce is cooked slowly until it thickens and achieves a velvety texture.
Fresh pasta sheets are thinly rolled out and cut into squares, with the meat mix placed in the middle. “You fold the two corners towards each other to form a triangle and fold to make it into a tortelloni,” says Rota.
The pasta is cooked for 4-5 minutes in salted boiling water before it’s tossed in the parmesan cream sauce over a low heat.
To finish, the pasta is placed in a bowl and topped with balsamic vinegar from Modena.
