Pumpkin Tortellini Casserole with Sage & Parmesan / Tortellini-Kürbis-Auflauf mit Salbei & Parmesan

3 stars Where did this go wrong? First of all, I didn't get why I was asked to separate the eggs and whisk the egg whites until foamy “ I noticed a bit of a change in texture in comparison with other casseroles, but not necessarily in a positive way (then again, I'm not a fan of savoury soufflés anyway).

Then the liquid “ 4 eggs, 100ml cream and 300ml milk “ why wasn't I surprised that there was still lots of liquid after 30 minutes of baking? We had to bake the casserole for another 40 minutes with the cheese crust removed (lest it would have burned) until the liquid was set, the pumpkin was cooked, and the tortellini were slightly dry…

I'd love to repeat this dish as I love pumpkin and am slightly fed up with the 100th recipe for pumpkin soup, but I have my doubts about this recipe…

Edited the next day: Reheat this on the stove with extra cream added, and you'll get creamy godliness, really nice comfort food. So basically, the dish is nice, it's the instructions and the quantities that messed it up...

Edited 3 February 2015: Time for a revisit! This time I felt free to adhere only loosely to the recipe. Most importantly, I omitted the milk, and when I felt that perhaps that that looked like not enough liquid, I drizzled another ~80 ml cream over the casserole. The result, I'm afraid to say, was a Pumpkin Tortellini Omelette, not a casserole... but at least the pumpkin was nearly done within the recommended baking period (30 - 45 min)!

Other changes I made were not beating the egg whites seperately; using only 100 g parmesan (or rather 'grated cheese for pasta', if I'm honest) instead of the required 200 g; I also used 250 g spinach ravioli and 250 g tomato mozzarella tortellini (I would have used spinach tortellini if they had been available), and a normal onion, sliced, instead of two spring onions.

I didn't fry the pumpkin cubes before baking them - perhaps that would actually be a good idea, as they were only nearly done, but not quite, after 45 min. I also fried half of the onion and added the other half raw - I think that the flavour of the fried one was more intense, but honestly that wasn't enough to convince me that that extra step is worth it, unless your frying the pumpkin anyway.

I do have other issues with this recipe, especially the list of ingredients: ie. specifying that you'll need a block of parmesan, only to require you to grate the whole piece (why not just ask for parmesan, and let me decide whether I want to buy it grated or do the work myself?), or specifying that you'll need ten sage leaves - of which eight are for decoration!

Edited 13 September 2015: Upgraded this recipe to 4 stars, as I made it again, adhering closer to the recipe, and actually it works quite well. I'm still not convinced that separating the eggs and whisking the egg whites is a good idea, so I'm not doing that; also, I'll usually add more sage to the eggmilk (used 6 leaves today). I did add the full amount of liquids (any less, and the pasta and pumpkin won't be covered sufficiently), and it cooks fine in 40 min time.

No idea why it didn't work when I made this the first time back in 2009 - I made it when I was still living in my tiny student appartment with only a microwave as an oven, but I never had the idea that the microwave/oven didn't work well for other dishes, so why whould it have failed me for this dish?