This recipe comes from the German translation of Time-Life's “Die Küche in
Italien”, originally published in 1968. Apart from the horrible US cups and spoons measurements, it's pretty good. The main reason
for this recipe is to get the measures straight and to adapt them to my personal tastes.
This recipe refers to others: fresh pasta, Béchamel sauce and salsa di
pomodori.
| quantity |
|
ingredient |
|
step |
| 300 g |
|
Deep-frozen spinach |
|
1, 4 |
| 40 ml |
|
Olive oil |
|
2 |
| 100 g |
|
Onions |
|
2 |
| 20 g |
|
Garlic |
|
3 |
| 30 g |
|
Butter |
|
5 |
| 500 g |
|
Lean minced beef |
|
5 |
| 100 g |
|
Chicken livers |
|
7 |
| 2 |
|
Eggs, about 60 g each |
|
8 |
| 2 g |
|
Dried oregano |
|
9 |
| 100 g |
|
Grated Parmesan cheese |
|
9 |
| 50 ml |
|
Fresh cream |
|
9 |
|
|
Salt |
|
9 |
|
|
Pepper |
|
9 |
| 250 g |
|
fresh pasta |
|
10 |
| 1 litre |
|
Sauce Béchamel |
|
11, 12 |
| 300 ml |
|
Salsa di pomodori |
|
13 |
| 50 g |
|
Parmesan cheese |
|
13 |
Procedure
Start at least 90 minutes before serving.
-
Thaw the spinach if frozen. Obviously you can use fresh spinach too, but I don't know
what quantity would be appropriate.
-
Finely chop the onion and start frying gently in the olive oil.
-
While the onion is frying, peel and crush the garlic and add to the pan shortly before
the onion is dry. The mixture should not brown.
-
When the onions are done, add the spinach and continue frying until the moisture has
evaporated. Reserve.
-
In the same frying pan, melt the butter and fry the meat until dry. Again, it shouldn't
brown considerably.
-
When the meat is done, coarsely mince meat and onion and spinach mixture to get a
uniform mixture.
-
There should be enough butter and fat left from the meat to fry the chicken liver. Fry
until barely firm; the livers will cook further in the oven. Chop coarsely and add to the
filling.
-
Whisk the eggs and add to the filling.
-
Add cheese, cream, oregano, salt and pepper to taste. Mix thoroughly.
-
Cook pasta and chop into sheets about 15 cm square.
-
Coat the bottom of an oven dish with
sauce béchamel
and place the cannelloni in them:
-
When finished, cover with the remaining béchamel and leave to cool. The sauce
will form a tough skin which makes the next step easier.
-
Cover the surface with salsa di pomodori. Sprinkle
with parmesan cheese and bake for 30 minutes.
Notes
Making the pasta is a significant part of the work. You can buy ready-made cannelloni
tubes, mainly dry and “no cook”—in other words, the tubes cook in the oven. Most recommend
a particularly liquid béchamel, and I've had good results with some, but not all, of them.
In particular I had a bad experience with
San Remo—despite the name, an Australian
company. It's too early to say where the problem lies: their other products are of good
quality, but the tubes didn't cook properly, and the results tasted like glue. Maybe they
should be cooked longer and at a lower temperature.
