Creamy Gorgonzola and Speck Cappelletti

This recipe makes 2 generous portions of pasta for you and your sweetie (or you and you later on).

Ingredients

Pasta Dough

- 1 cup semola flour

- 1 whole egg and 2 egg yolks

- Pinch of salt

Filling

- 4 ounces creamy gorgonzola

- 1/2 cup grated parmesan

- 2 ounces fresh mozzarella

- 2 ounces sliced speck

Instructions

1. Measure flour into a heap on your cutting board and make a well in the center large enough that your eggs won't spill out.

2. Crack the whole egg into the center, then separate the two egg yolks and add to your flour well.

3. Add a pinch of salt to the eggs and with a fork start gently mixing the egg, breaking the yolks.

4. Carefully start incorporating flour into the center with the eggs until the mixture becomes too thick to mix with the fork.

5. Switch to kneading with your hands until a shaggy dough forms. Continue to mix until all the flour is incorporated (about 10 minutes). A bench scraper is useful here to scrape up any flour stuck to the cutting board. If your dough is quite wet, don't be afraid to keep dusting with flour until you have a firm dough ball.

6. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and set aside for at least 15 minutes.

7. While the dough is resting, combine the filling ingredients in a food processor. I would suggest adding the speck last and just pulsing it in so you still get some texture of meat in the filling.

8. Once the dough has rested, uncover it and cut it into quarters. Take one quarter to work with and wrap the rest of the dough back up.

9. Run the dough through your pasta machine starting with the lowest setting until you get to about a 6. You don't want the sheets to be too thin with filled pasta or the filling has a tendency to spill out while boiling. Repeat this step with the other 3 quarters of dough until you have 4 sheets.

10. Using a 2-4" circular cookie cutter or a regular drinking glass, cut out circles from the dough sheet. Try to space out your cuts so you can maximize the number of circles from one sheet. You can ball up the scraps and re-roll a new sheet about 2 more times at which point the dough will likely be too dried out and over worked.

11. Once you have your rounds, set up a work space with your bowl of filling, your round pasta sheets, and a small dish with water (this will help with the sealing). I also usually use a small melon baller to scoop my filling so i get about the same amount in each cappelletti.

12. Scoop about about a tablespoon of filling into each round, then dip your finger in the water and trace around the edges of the pasta round.

13. Pick up each round, fold it in half, sealing the filling inside and then gently create an indent in the straight part of the half circle so that you can wrap the two corners around and press them together. You should end up with a plump little stuffed pasta! Repeat this with each round until they are all securely sealed up and shaped.

14. At this point you can freeze the cappelletti or if you will be eating them immediately, drop them in boiling water for about 3-5 minutes until they float.

15. Serve with any sauce you like, I prefer a light butter and wine sauce with some extra chopped up fried speck and black pepper on top!