Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Cannelloni

Hey everyone! Welcome back.

Y’all good and safe out there?

/radio edit

Welcome back to Sunday Gravy everyone!

Got a real fun one for you today and man-o-Manischewitz is it delicious too.

We are going back to my all-too-familiar well and we’re going to take on another Italian American classic: cannelloni.

Most of you are familiar with this old school staple of Italian American restaurants and perhaps some of you may even get it confused with manicotti. After all they are both rolled tubes filled with things and covered in a red sauce with some cheese on top.

HOWEVER! There really is a difference between the two, apart from cannelonni having a meat filling and manicotti having a cheese filling.

Traditionally cannelloni is a stuffed pasta tube, while authentic manicotti is normally made from crepes!

See! Knowledge dropped!

MANY Italian American restaurants just use the same pre-made pasta tube for both dishes but I want you to think traditional here. Pasta vs crepe.

Today’s inspiration was because of my ongoing “empty the goddamn freezer” initiative and guess what was found in the freezer?

A leftover container of the “Mother Sauce” from our Mother Sauce 2.0 post that we did a few weeks back.

Since cannelloni is indeed meat based and there’s some meaty goodness in the mother sauce AND the sauce was already made? Shit. That decision was easy.

To give a quick overview, there are 4 different processes to a good cannelloni: the filling, the pasta, a bechamel sauce and the marinara sauce. You can make this as easy or as challenging as you like.

If you wanted to go the difficult route you would scratch make all of these.

Which, of course, is exactly what we are doing.

Of course the hardest element, the Mother Sauce, was already made thereby decreasing the total difficulty level dramatically.

We will however; make each of the other 3 elements here today.

For the filling:

1 pound of ground meat. Many options here. Beef, veal, ground chicken, it’s dealers choice really.

1 tablespoon of olive oil – use the good stuff

1/2 medium sized onion diced

2-3 garlic cloves minced

1/2 teaspoon of granulated garlic

1/2 teaspoon of granulated onion

1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano

A few leaves of fresh basil minced

Some grates of fresh parmesan.

A spoonful of bechamel* (recipe to follow.)

Score your ass some meat first.

Yep, we’re going all ground pork today. After all it’s still Me cooking here.

Go ahead and gather your herbage before starting.

Gonna have to do something with all of that basil.

Wonder what that could be?

Herb garden is looking good this year with only the cilantro calling it quits. Again I honestly think the herbs are much healthier due to a dramatic decrease in LAX plane traffic as well as vehicular traffic.

A tiny bit of serendipity in an otherwise fully fucked up world.

Enough! Let’s get after this bastard!

Get a good size skillet on the stove and pre-heat it over medium heat. Add the olive oil and heat until the oil shimmers.

Let’s make with the saute action by starting with our diced onions.

The onion will saute for about 5-6 minutes before adding the garlic. As always, just a few seconds with the garlic. Just until it gets aromatic.

Next we add in the meat.

Cook until “browned?” “Greyed?” Ground pork doesn’t do a real browning but you get the idea. Add in your spices and cook and stir for a few more minutes.

After that we’re going to get the fresh basil in there.

Cook for a couple of minutes more and be sure to break up the meat as best you can. Don’t have to get too crazy with that shit though because we’re going to make sure that meat filling gets broken down proper.

Texture of the filling is key for canneloni so we want a fairly small grind.

What could help with that pray tell?

Into the food processor with you! Why not grate in a little fresh parm while we’re at it.

Just a couple of pulses should do it really.

That’s the texture right there. Remove the ground up meat to a bowl and set aside.

Yeah it is a pain in the ass to have to clean the food processor after we only used it for, like, 3 seconds but your effort will be rewarded.

Now. Pasta!

Of course we’re making it from scratch

There are 4 distinct parts to this meal and fresh pasta is another.

One more time with feeling.

Fresh Pasta!

“1 1/2 cups Semolina flour

2 Eggs beaten

2 Tbsp Water

2 Tbsp Olive Oil

Toss everything in a bowl and combine into a rough dough. Most of you will remember that we CANNOT use the stand mixer for the kneading of this since it’s too small of a dough ball so we’ve got to do some work. Knead on a lightly floured surface 10 agonizing minutes.

By hand.

Remember? Glutens and shit?

When done?

Let this bad motor scooter rest for about 20 minutes.”

Yes, I blatently copied that previous bit directly from the linked Mother Sauce post.

It’s mine dammit and the likelihood of me suing myself is somewhat low.

Not out of the question but low.

After resting and rolling out we now have pasta sheets.

Don’t let these sit out too long or they’ll dry out and we don’t want that but they’ll be OK for the couple of minutes it takes to make the bechamel.

Segue to the bechamel.

Tomato bechamel sauce.

3 tablespoons of butter

3 tablespoons of flour

1 1/2 cups of whole milk heated until just barely bubbly around the edges  – that’s important

1/4 cup of grated fresh parmesan

1/4 teaspoon of NUTMEG!

1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper

1 cup of tomato sauce

You all are in the advanced Sunday Gravy class so of course you know how to make a fucking bechamel.

In goes the butter and flour.

Then get it nice and lightly blonde and bubbly.

Next we add in our heated milk. Yep, exactly like when we make a cheese sauce for our macaroni and cheese. Now add in the grated parm and the seasonings and thicken that fucker up!

Bring your meat mixture over and give it a ladle of the bechamel right into the meat to get it a little sticky. Enough to hold together. Mix well.

Take the remaining bechamel and add in the 1 cup of tomato sauce. Incorporate it well.

Yeah, I like that.

As mentioned, element 4 of this meal has already been taken care of. The Mother Sauce.

Yes, two different sauces for this baby.

Curious about the assembly of this dish?

Ingredients. ASSEMBLE!

We’re going to cut each sheet of pasta in half.

Now let’s start the finished product shall we?

Ladle the bechamel/tomato sauce into your baking dish. Make sure to cover the entire bottom of the dish.

Get one of the cut sheets of pasta and get some of the meat mixture in there. It’s fine to just use your hands.

We’re going to do an almost “egg roll” type of roll here. Bring in the ends of the pasta and roll up tightly.

There you go!

Now start filling up that pan.

I made 8 individual cannellonis (cannellonii?) today.

Here comes the mother sauce. Get that shit all sauced up!

Goodness!

How about some more fresh parmesan?

Yeah. Uh-huh. Why not.

Bring some fresh mozzarella to the party! Whole milk mozzarella if you can.

Cover the baking dish in foil and then this will go into a preheated 365 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Remove the foil and back in the oven she goes for 20 minutes more, giving us a total cooking time of…

/grabs slide rule

40 minutes!

See! Math skills!

After 40 minutes, let’s see what we have.

Oh fuck yes!

By the way? Let this motherfucker rest for at LEAST 10 minutes before attempting to serve.

For service how about a little bread (not mine – making the pasta dough was enough for the day) and some salad maybe? Glass of vino too?

How about a close-up?

I said a close-up!

Now how about a bite?

Epic.

It’s porky, it’s got the rich tang from both the bechamel and the Mother Sauce. You know what you notice right off the bat though?

The fresh pasta. It’s goddamn prevalent as fuck.

If you’ve ordered cannelloni or manicotti in a restaurant you may think “Hmm, it’s wrapped in a noodle. Interesting.”

With this? “Holy shit that’s some fresh homemade pasta in there!” And you would be right.

The pasta does not require pre-cooking due to the time spent in the oven. It’s slightly al dente but it retains it’s integrity during the meal.

You may even encounter a leftover piece of Italian sausage (from the Mother Sauce) while eating and you think that might be tasty too?

Fucking hell. Incredible. A glass of red wine perfectly accompanies this plate.

This is a real goddamn keeper folks.

I personally ate 3 of the cannelloni and only wish that I had enough belly room to finish a 4th.

This is not an entry level preparation. This is not a quick weeknight meal that you can throw together at the last moment.

Sure there are several steps involved and sure you may have great success taking a shortcut or two with a storebought sauce or pasta shells.

But it won’t be this.

It won’t be “epic.”

If you’ve got the time or are stuck back at home after being put on lockdown again give it a try.

You’ll be happy as shit that you did.

Thanks for being there good folks.

Please stay well, please remain healthy and think of the health of others while you do.

See you next week.

PEACE and UNITY!