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Ceps Tortellini with Roasted Nuts and Sage Butter

Celebrate ceps with Raymond Blanc's delicious tortellini recipe served with a simple sage butter.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Pine and hazelnut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 13 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep1 hr
Cook30 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Mix the flour with a pinch of sea salt and make a well in the middle. Add the 2 eggs and a splash of water, then work into a smooth dough, about 8 minutes. Wrap and rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

  2. Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Spread the pine nuts and hazelnuts on a tray and roast 6 to 8 minutes until golden. Cool, then roughly chop the hazelnuts.

  3. Finely chop the shallot, garlic and 3 large sage leaves. Warm some olive oil in a pan, soften the shallot for 2 minutes, add the garlic and cep mushrooms, and cook 8 to 10 minutes until dry and golden. Season, stir in the sage, squeeze in the lemon quarter, and cool.

  4. Beat the remaining egg in a small bowl. Roll the pasta dough very thin and cut into 5 cm (2 in) rounds.

  5. Place a small spoonful of filling in the centre of each round. Brush the edge with beaten egg, fold into a half-moon, press out the air and seal, then wrap the two corners around a finger to form tortellini. Keep covered until cooking.

  6. Melt the butter in a wide pan over medium heat until it foams and turns nutty brown. Add the 8 sage leaves and fry about 1 minute until crisp. Remove from heat and add a squeeze of the half lemon.

  7. Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Cook the tortellini 3 to 4 minutes until tender and floating, then drain.

  8. Toss the tortellini gently in the sage butter. Serve topped with the roasted nuts and freshly ground black pepper.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pine + hazelnuttop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Olive + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together12,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Mushroom + shallottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,960 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the banana

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pasta, egg, olive, mushroom, pepper, shallot, garlic):

  1. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  2. Avocadobetter flavor fit
  3. Limebetter flavor fit
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pasta, egg, olive, mushroom, pepper, shallot, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).