Sorpresine

Growing up, the pasta of choice to eat when sick was always pastina. It even became a nickname for me - Christina Pastina, my parents called me.

But there are tons of shapes that work well in broths. Ditalini, orzo, acini di pepe, stelline, and of course, sorpresine.

I had actually never seen sorpresine before moving to Italy, where they are easily found on supermarket shelves. I never bought them (I could never cheat on pastina like that), but I always marvel at how tiny and delicate they are. It looks like you could fit at least 10 of them on a spoon.

The name, meaning little surprises, never fails to make me chuckle - because the surprise is actually that they’re empty! The shape at first glance looks like a stuffed tortellino, but they contain no filling at all.

I chose to make mine using a classic egg dough, but I have seen some recipes online also using durum wheat, and also with slight variations in the shape.

To make each of the sorpresine, start with freshly rolled dough. I rolled my egg dough very thin, out to the penultimate setting on my hand-crank pasta machine. Cut the dough into squares - you can start out larger at first if you need to practice folding, but make them smaller for a better sized addition to soups and broths. I made roughly 3cm squares, but will try even smaller next time.

To fold them:

• Take a square and fold one corner across to create a triangle. Only seal the dough where the two corners meet - do not press the sides together, and keep the center hollow.

• Use your finger to gently push in along the middle of the folded edge, which forces the two shorter sides to bend back.

• Bring these two corners together and bind them.