Back to Italian Menu Back to Main Menu
Cannelloni are rectangular pasta sheets rolled into a cylindrical shape with a filling. This stuffed dish baked with white sauce and cheese will delight all lovers of spinach.
Ingredients
For the canneloni
3/4 cup plain flour (maida)
1 tsp oil
1/2 tsp salt
For the spinach stuffing
35 spinach leaves
100 gms crumbled paneer
1/2 tsp chopped green chillies
a pinch of nutmeg (jaiphal) powder
3 tbsp White Sauce
salt to taste
For the baking
3 cups White Sauce
2 tbsp grated processed cheese
Method
For the canneloni
1.Mix the flour, oil and salt. Add water and prepare a soft dough.
2.Keep the dough aside for 15 minutes.
For the spinach stuffing
1.Steam the spinach leaves. Squeeze out the water.
2.Chop finely and mix with the paneer, green chillies, nutmeg powder, white sauce.
How to proceed
1.Roll out the dough into small thin rounds.
2.Boil plenty of water in a vessel and add 1 tablespoon of oil to the boiling water.
3.Drop one round at a time into the boiling water, cook for 1/2 minute and remove. Repeat for all rounds.
4.Fill each round with 1 tablespoon of the spinach stuffing and roll up.
5.Arrange on a greased baking dish, pour the white sauce, spread a little stuffing for decoration and sprinkle grated cheese on top.
6.Bake in a hot oven at 200 degree C ( 400 degree F) for 15 minutes.
7.Serve hot.
Spinach and Cheese Cannelloni is a pasta cannelloni recipe created of butter, flour, milk, salt, freshly grated nutmeg, finely grated pecorino romano or parmigiano-reggiano, olive oil, fresh pasta rectangles, onion, finely chopped garlic cloves, baby spinach, ricotta, and nutmeg powder.
Cannelloni, which are also known as manicotti in the United States.
It's surprising that it occurred so recently, because the concept -- rolling a sheet of pasta or a crespella (the Italian equivalent of a crepe) into a tube, stuffing it, pouring a sauce over it and baking it -- is remarkably simple. It can also produce extremely elegant results; thus cannelloni have become classic banquet dishes, of the kind that figure prominently at weddings, cenoni and family reunions.
This doesn't mean you should limit them to special occasions. They're quick to make, especially if you use commercially prepared pasta shells, and tasty too. As cannelloni are considerably larger than ravioli or tortellini you can also include coarser elements such as chopped porcini or small shrimp in the filling that will provide pleasing texture variations. The one thing you do have to remember is to make sure that the sauce you pour over the cannelloni once you have arranged them in the baking dish is somewhat more liquid than what you would normally use for pasta, because it will thicken in the oven.
As is the case with most other kinds of pasta preparations there's a tremendous amount of variation in fillings and sauces. Here you also have several options with regards to the shells:
•You can make them at home, by preparing pasta dough, rolling it out dime thin, and cutting it into 3 by 4-inch rectangles. Boil the sheets a few at a time in lightly salted water, removing them while they're still al dente, and place them on a moistened towel. When they are all cooked fill them by placing a few tablespoons of filling along the long edge of each and rolling them up into tubes, then put them in the baking dish and cover them with sauce.
•You can buy commercially prepared cannelloni or manicotti shells. Cook them according to the directions on the package, stuff them, and put them in the baking dish.
•You can make savory crespelle, the Italian equivalent of crepes, and roll them up around the filling as you would sheets of home made dough. Cannelloni made with crespelle (which are generally called crespelle in Italy) have a wonderfully elegant texture.
