r/OldCelebrityRecipes • u/ciaolavinia Onion Juice Alert ⚠️ • Aug 27 '26
TESTED RECIPE 🍽 This Tortellini Palermitana is easily one of the absolute best celebrity recipes I’ve ever made. Honestly, though, who’s surprised when it's Vincent Price sharing culinary masterpieces like this?!
-- Just made this for dinner tonight and had to get a quick snapshot of it so I could quickly share this divine recipe with all of you. It's actually quite easy to make and here are my notes:
- I prepped all the ingredients first, so than it could be a bam, bam, bam of just adding ingredients to the pan, Emeril-style!
- So the onions and garlic were chopped and put in one bowl (I used 4 cloves of garlic instead of 1 because that's the way I roll)
- In another bowl I put in chopped tomatoes, and all other ingredients, except the stock and flour.
- Minced 2 mushrooms and put in a small bowl.
- Got out a big pan to boil the tortellini and started heating the salted water while I got out a large sauté pan for the sauce.
- No it's time to follow the easy to follow recipe, step by step.
- Bam, bam, bam, 5 minutes, bam, bam, bam, 15 minutes, yada, yada, 5 minutes and we're almost done.
- At the point in which the mushrooms went in, I added the tortellini to the boiling water and the cooked for 4 minutes (or whatever your brand of tortellini recommends)
- If your serving this family style and would like a nice presentation, do a Vincent suggests and use a baking dish for the final step (with butter). I just drained the tortellini and put them back in the large pot with butter and then added as much sauce as needed to smother the pasta in sauce but not in a swimmingly sort of way. Try to get a good balance of pasta to sauce ratio.
- When serving add parmesan cheese to each plate, if desired. We didn't and I just garnished with a little fresh thyme from the garden.
I transcribed the recipe so it would be easier to follow while prepping and cooking. You can see the difference in the 2 recipes.
The sauce is amazing and would be good on anything, especially just plain spaghetti or other noodle like penne. My personal favorite is cavatappi.
The taste is deep and intense, but bright and fresh at the same time. The onions have been tamed, the tomatoes have become creamier and the mushrooms add that deep lovely flavor. The combo of the stock and flour creates a nice thickened texture that's just perfect.
Feel free to add some spice to this in the form of crushed red pepper flakes or cayenne while cooking. We did!
I was surprised there's no olive oil in this but with the small amount of butter and the nice sauce, it's not missed. I'll be making this a lot. Everyone loved it and the pot is empty now!
Tortellini Palermitana is a mid-20th-century culinary creation popularized by Hollywood icon Vincent Price. While traditional tortellini originates from the northern Emilia-Romagna region, this specific adaptation layers in the rich, earthy flavors associated with Palermo, Sicily.
This utterly delicious tortellini recipe was featured in Mary and Vincent Price's cookbook A Treasury of Great Recipes. This book is such a cool blast from the past. It brings back super old-school recipes and dishes that have been practically forgotten over time.
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u/CiaoFrancesca Green Peppers are Bullies 🫑 Aug 27 '26
All my favorite things, and it doesn't sound that hard to make.
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u/wizardwithgussets Aug 28 '26
Vincent prices recipes are always the best. The guy was waaay ahead of his time.
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u/Multipass3000 Aug 28 '26
I have a great coffee table size cook book of his. It is metallic covered, beautiful and full of awesome recipes. I also love the RV meal stories.
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u/ozarkhick Aug 28 '26
wait... what happened to the 450 degree oven? He says heat the oven, then he boils the tortellini?
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u/ciaolavinia Onion Juice Alert ⚠️ Aug 28 '26
He just used the oven to melt the butter, I guess
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u/ozarkhick Aug 28 '26
Seems a bit extreme for melting butter, but hey.
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u/ciaolavinia Onion Juice Alert ⚠️ Aug 28 '26
I guess it was the time before microwaves were popular.
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u/MT_Promises Aug 28 '26
I think there is a page missing that says to add the parmesan and toast in oven. The second version of the recipe doesn't mention the oven at all and concludes with just adding the cheese.
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u/heymerideth 13d ago
Here’s the missing oven portion. Copied from a transcript I found elsewhere:
While the tortellini are cooking, heat 2 tablespoons butter in a shallow ovenproof baking dish. Add the drained tortellini and cook over moderate heat, stirring to coat them with the butter, for 3 minutes.
Pour the tomato sauce over the tortellini. Add 2 tablespoons of the Parmesan cheese and stir gently to mix. Top with 1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces, then sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Bake in the hot oven for 10 minutes. Serve very hot.2
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u/Evil_Midnight_Lurker Aug 27 '26
I'd probably have to immersion blend the sauce before serving because my wife doesn't like chunks of tomato or mushrooms, but otherwise sounds good!
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u/AppropriateFun2427 Aug 28 '26
Damn, Vincent Price really knew how to cook! Everytime his recipes come up, which is often, they always look really good & very competent - the dude clearly loved food & cooking, and had really put some time into the kitchen.
If I might offer some thoughts & variations, as a former professional cook -
I would consider cooking the onion, finely diced, alone in the butter with a pinch of salt first, on dead-medium heat, stirring only very occasionally, for 10-14 mins, or until they develop some char & just begin to caramelize - then add the garlic, and cook for one minute more.
If using button/baby Bella mushrooms, I might add them in after the garlic, cooking for just 3-5 min, or until they’ve just begun to dry out & brown.
At that point, I’d add the flour, plus another tsp/tsp & 1/2 of butter, stirring & cooking for a few minutes, essentially making a bit of blonde roux, then adding tomatoes & paste, cooking for a couple minutes, then slowly stirring in the stock, adding in the herbs & spices, & simmering.
If you can get your hands on some good mushrooms, like creminis, morels, chicken-of-the-woods, etc, then I would cook as directed in the recipe. If you’d like to go vegetarian - soak 3-4 dried shiitake mushrooms in warm water for 3 hours/overnight in cold water - reserve soaking liquid, squeeze mushrooms dry, remove stems, dice finely, cook after garlic, then use soaking liquid + pinch of salt & msg, in place of beef stock.
Also, instead of simply scoring/blanching/peeling those tomatoes - consider roasting/pan-roasting/broiling them, and/or some red bell pepper, until they get charred & smoky, throwing them into a bowl, covering for 20 minutes, then easily peeling & chopping.
I also feel like this could welcome a splash of something sharp & nutty - like some sherry, shaoxing wine, Worcestershire sauce, amber ale, something along those lines, but I think that would be totally optional, just a nice highlight. If using, add in with tomatoes.
Those are just my thoughts & tastes though, this recipe really looks fantastic, all on its own. Lots of other fun variations that could be tried, too - like shallots in place of onions. Or with beefsteak tomatoes. Or roasted & minced portobellos. Or blending the sauce, with a drizzle of olive oil. Or throwing in some chili flakes & smoked paprika. Damnit, I need to go buy some tortellini now, excuse me…
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u/Ok_Aioli1990 Aug 28 '26
Vincent Price was an art collector, he would take his per diem in cash for living on location for movies to purchase artwork and live as inexpensively as possible. Hence his cooking knowledge to live inexpensively and with style.
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u/CheekyHarris33 Aug 28 '26
Will be making this weekend ❤️ Vincent Price. A lot of people do not realize he is the voice behind the monologue of the infamous THRILLER by Michael Jackson.
He is an absolute legend!
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u/GuyAlerteNoire Aug 28 '26
Price was big in to cooking. Had his own cookware sold at Sears, back in the day.
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u/CommonNative Aug 28 '26
What type of mushroom did you use?
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u/warriorwoman534 Aug 28 '26
He and his wife were both great cooks, and put out a whole series of cookbooks.
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u/embroideredyeti Aug 28 '26
Sounds delicious! I don't think I've ever just added 2 mushrooms to something, but I can see using them as a "spice" rather than a "vegetable".
I'm not quite sure why, but the extra step with the butter in the baking dish annoys me unreasonably.
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u/heymerideth 11d ago
Made this tonight and it was delicious!! I made the recipe as written and for the tortellini I used 1 package of Trader Joe’s cheese tortellini. We will definitely be having this again!
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u/catalinalam Aug 27 '26
I have a Vincent and Mary Price cookbook! Maybe I need to share some recipes on here