Pasta con Salsa Caruso

Capeletis a la Caruso is a Uruguayan recipe of beef tortellini pasta in a cream sauce. This recipe has an obvious Italian influence, but Uruguayans like to add their own touch to traditional Italian dishes - like the beef broth to this creamy ham and cheese sauce.

Salsa Caruso is a classic pasta sauce from Uruguay influenced by Italian flavors. The milk and cream base has a generous amount of beef bouillon mixed right in to give the sauce an almost gravy-like quality. It also includes sliced mushrooms, ham, and Parmesan cheese.

Caruso sauce was first created in the 1950s in Uruguay, by Raymundo Monti of the restaurant 'Mario and Alberto', located at the intersection of Constituyente and Tacuarembó Streets in Montevideo. Monti wanted to create a new recipe following the current traditions of Italian cuisine. The dish was named in honor of the famous Neapolitan tenor Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) who was a popular figure in South America during his tours of the 1910s.

The sauce was originally thought to be a variant of bechamel but its flavor is distinctly different. Several culinary seminars referred to Caruso sauce as "the new invention" and it gained international culinary recognition. In recent decades, the sauce has become increasingly popular in most South American and Western European countries.