Tortelli di Zucca Mantovani

This is not a dish you improvise. Tortelli di zucca belongs to Mantua, to the kitchens of the Gonzaga dukes, to Christmas Eve tables where families have served it for five hundred years. The combination of sweet squash, almond cookies, and candied fruit in mustard syrup strikes Americans as strange. It struck me as strange when I first encountered it. Then I tasted it properly made, and I understood that the Mantuans had discovered something the rest of us had missed.

The filling walks a tightrope between sweet and savory. Too much amaretti and it becomes dessert. Too little mostarda and the filling is flat, merely sweet without the spicy counterpoint. The squash must be roasted until deeply caramelized, then drained of every drop of excess moisture. Wet filling makes soggy pasta. Soggy pasta is an abomination.

You cannot substitute the mostarda. Do not write to tell me you used chutney or jam with mustard powder. The mostarda di Cremona, with its whole candied fruits suspended in that sharp, nose-clearing syrup, is the soul of this dish. Find it at Italian specialty shops or order it. Without it, you are making something else entirely.