The saga of the Meat Filled Cannelloni

[Kim Shook]

I have already talked (actually freaked out) about this in the “I finally opened my pasta machine” thread.  But it turned into such a project that I though folks might be interested in my process.  Or it might give you something diverting to giggle at during these trying times.  I hadn’t made the recipe for Meat Filled Cannelloni since 2007 when @David Ross gave me the recipe.  The original recipe calls for making your own pasta, but David said that he uses egg roll wrappers.  Back then I went for the egg roll wrappers.  It was absolutely delicious.  Since I am housebound, I thought it might be fun (HA!) to try out the pasta machine I’d bought over 10 years ago and never used.  (Also, @Shelby said I had to.  Not forgotten that, @Shelby 😉).  The recipe consists of pasta, tomato sauce, a beef/spinach filling, and a bechamel.  I ended up making the tomato sauce and filling one day and the bechamel and pasta the next. 

 

Tomato sauce:

 

Filling:

This consists of onion, garlic, spinach, ground beef, chicken liver, Parmesan, cream, eggs, and oregano.  It is a fantastic and versatile mixture.  I think it would be great in lasagna, too. 

 

The bechamel:

Just a lovely, rich sauce.  Comes together very easily. 

 

So far, so good.  Time to make the pasta.  Then the clusterf*ck began.  Never having made pasta before, I had no idea what I was really aiming for.  To make things easier on myself, I used a recipe and set of directions for the Kitchen Aid from Bon Appetit.  No clue if this is what it is supposed to be:

I had a hard time even figuring out how to put the cutters and the guide on the machine.  The clamp (which had to go on a cutting board at their suggestion since it didn’t fit the counter edge) didn’t work very well for me:

 

At this point another question came up – should the dough be room temp or slightly chilled.  Opinions vary – even at eG.  I went with room temp. 

 

Seasoning the machine is putting a small piece of dough through the rollers and the cutters to pick up any small bits of metal or dust that might be in there after manufacture.  The rollers worked reasonably well, but the cutters gave me some trouble.  The larger one got a little jammed up, but the thin cutter was impossible:

I’ve heard now from folks here that no one seems to use their cutters anyway.  They just do sheets and roll them up and cut with a knife (more anon re: that).  But I think that my dough was just too sticky.  It wouldn’t dis-attach from the cutters.  And this was what was left behind for me to clean up:

And because it could rust, you can’t use any water or cleansers.  I got them as clean as I could with a brush, a crochet hook, and banging the bastard on the counter. 

 

Once I got it “clean”, it was time to roll out my sheets to cut for cannelloni.  I realized fairly quickly that there was nowhere in the kitchen that would afford me the room to do this.  I remembered an old Alton Brown show where he rolls pasta sheets on an ironing board.  It was already set up in the living room, so I just grabbed a clean sheet to cover it, clamped the machine to the board and went to town.  I couldn’t seem to get the hang of rolling out the dough.  The crank fell out of the machine and onto my foot about 9 times.  The dough would bunch up on one end of the rollers and turn into accordion pleats at the end.  Sigh. 

 

I finally managed to get 14 sheets that were generally the same size.  I dusted them with semolina flour and separated the layers with plastic wrap, bunged them into the fridge and went to bed; exhausted, hungry and unsatiated. 

 

Yesterday (a day later than I meant to serve this), I got everything ready to assemble.  Tomato sauce in the baking dish:

 

Got out the pasta and started making my cannelloni.  I just knew that if I tried to boil a bunch at a time, I would just come to grief and everything would end up sailing through the kitchen window into the back yard.  So, I got a smallish pot of water boiling and did them one at a time for about 1 1/2 minutes.   I stuffed and rolled each one as the came out of the water.  It worked out fine.  By the time I had put one in the baking dish, the next one was ready to stuff.   

 

Meat filling on the bottom third of a sheet of dough:

 

Rolled up:

Not too terrible shabby.  That little cut is from my fingernail.  Baking pan filled with cannelloni:

It’s funny how much that looks like my trashy tamale dinner from the other night:

 😁

 

Covered with bechamel, dolloped with tomato sauce, dotted with butter, and sprinkled with Parm:

 

Back to the pasta for a minute.  When I put them on the baking sheet after rolling and cutting the night before, I sprinkled the bottom of the sheet with semolina and started stacking.  I did put plastic wrap between the pasta sheets on the pan, but not between the pan and the first layer.  Sigh.  So, my bottom layer was stuck.  I had plenty for my prepared pan but was aggravated at myself.  I managed to get them off the pan, but they were really stretched out and unusable for cannelloni.  I had the bright idea that I could turn them into fettuccine.  So, I did what I’d seen all the cooks do on TV and youtube: sprinkled them with semolina dough, folded up and cut.  Then I “fluffed” them.  Nothing happened.  I had little pasta clots just lying there, eternally stuck together.

 

Out of the oven, it looked just like the picture above, but the cheese and bechamel were a little toasty.  Dished up:

 

And it tasted…fragmented?  Everything tasted good.  I somehow, in all the stress of the pasta drama, missed my note from David saying that he used only 3/4 c. of the bechamel, which is MUCH less than the recipe makes.  There was just too much of it.  It is, of course, extremely rich and it detracted from the perfect tomato sauce.  It just caused the dish to be unbalanced.  The beef/spinach filling was as good as I remembered.  And the big deal?  The pasta?  Meh.  It was ok.  A little underdone in some places and a little mushy in others.  Overall and mostly it was fine.  Worth the effort?  Not a bit.  I’ll definitely make this again, but I’ll use the egg roll wrappers. 

 

[rotuts]

@Kim Shook 

 

good for you for trying the pasta machine again

 

sorry it didn't work out to your satisfaction

 

personally 

 

I cant imagine too much béchamel in anything.

 

it just me I know.

Edited April 8, 2020 by rotuts (log)

[Kim Shook]

@blue_dolphin and @demiglace - please don't be sad for me.  This is how I work out my feelings.  I really meant for this to be funny!  I promise I'm not overly stressed or upset about it.  No worries - REALLY!!!  But thank you for caring about me!

[Toliver]

45 minutes ago, Kim Shook said:

... and banging the bastard on the counter. 

"That's what she said!" [/TheOffice] 

Kim, yes, I was laughing as I read your food diary here.

I plead with you not to give up. To say you are ambitious is an understatement. I would have suggested you start simply, at first. Fettuccine, perhaps. My brother, when he first started making his own pasta, eventually found the recipe that worked for him. He not only made Fettuccine but would make "birds nests" out of the excess, let them dry and kept them in a storage bag so he could have his Fettuccine any night of the week.

Once you get your pasta recipe right, then move up and onward...Ravioli next and then your Cannelloni, perhaps.

Please try again...

Edited April 8, 2020 by Toliver
Edited to try and get leftover code off the screen (log)

[Kim Shook]

3 minutes ago, Toliver said:

"That's what she said!" [/TheOffice] 

 

 

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

[suzilightning]

OH @Kim Shook, I laughed like crazy.  It truly is in the formula.  Remember that just like bread, pasta is sensitive to the weather and humidity.  I have always had to adjust.  I also have made fresh sheets for lasagna and fetuccine.  I use my dining room table as my machine doesn't fit on my industrial kitchen one.  I always let the dough rest in the fridge for about an hour then I take it out and let it come to room temp.   Not too much extra 00 flour then big to small rolls with turns in between.

Keep on keeping on sister girl!!!

Edited April 9, 2020 by suzilightning
misplaced comma (log)

[Bernie]

Got to say I initially got a laugh.🙂

 

But then I felt sad for you. I remember my first time...she was...no wait we are talking about pasta.

 

Don't be a coward and make the dough again.

 

Its got to be much drier.

Put a cup of flour on the bench, make a well and crack an egg in it. Combine adding flour till you have a dry mix. Just egg & flour. (when you become a master pasta maker you can add semolina (corn meal) or  wholemeal buts that's for the yuppies)

It should not be sticky at all.

(One variation is to use only egg yolks)

Lightly flour the rollers of the machine.

Start with a small piece of dough about golf ball size.

Form the dough into a log and sort log and sort of of flatten it. liberally coat with flour (so it wont stick!)

Start with the thickest setting on the machine

Roll through once then flour the dough lightly both sides  and roll through again.

Coat lightly with flour and fold in half. (longways or cross ways depends on how wide your machine is and how wide your dough is.)

Roll again

Decrease the thickness setting and repeat all the steps again.

 

Dust lightly with flour (or a bit heavier if you need to fold it before you need to use it)

 

When its the right thickness you can use it as you did or make spaghetti or fettuccine depending on what cutters are on your machine.

 

This first piece of dough is for practice 🙂 so don't worry if you muck it up. That's what the bin is for.

 

By using a small piece of dough the sheet wont get to long and is easy to handle.

 

The smarties  can use a big bit of dough and end up with 6 feet long dough, but that's just showing off and I never want 6ft long noodles anyway.

I stick with about 1 ft (or 2 ft if I am feeling brave).

 

Don't worry if it seems to dry, the pasta will be boiled or the sheets used like you did and cook in liquid. It must be dry enough to cook before it dissolves in the sauce. That's what causes it to be mushy.

 

 

[David Ross]

16 hours ago, Kim Shook said:

I have already talked (actually freaked out) about this in the “I finally opened my pasta machine” thread.  But it turned into such a project that I though folks might be interested in my process.  Or it might give you something diverting to giggle at during these trying times.  I hadn’t made the recipe for Meat Filled Cannelloni since 2007 when @David Ross gave me the recipe.  The original recipe calls for making your own pasta, but David said that he uses egg roll wrappers.  Back then I went for the egg roll wrappers.  It was absolutely delicious.  Since I am housebound, I thought it might be fun (HA!) to try out the pasta machine I’d bought over 10 years ago and never used.  (Also, @Shelby said I had to.  Not forgotten that, @Shelby 😉).  The recipe consists of pasta, tomato sauce, a beef/spinach filling, and a bechamel.  I ended up making the tomato sauce and filling one day and the bechamel and pasta the next. 

 

Tomato sauce:

 

Filling:

This consists of onion, garlic, spinach, ground beef, chicken liver, Parmesan, cream, eggs, and oregano.  It is a fantastic and versatile mixture.  I think it would be great in lasagna, too. 

 

The bechamel:

Just a lovely, rich sauce.  Comes together very easily. 

 

So far, so good.  Time to make the pasta.  Then the clusterf*ck began.  Never having made pasta before, I had no idea what I was really aiming for.  To make things easier on myself, I used a recipe and set of directions for the Kitchen Aid from Bon Appetit.  No clue if this is what it is supposed to be:

I had a hard time even figuring out how to put the cutters and the guide on the machine.  The clamp (which had to go on a cutting board at their suggestion since it didn’t fit the counter edge) didn’t work very well for me:

 

At this point another question came up – should the dough be room temp or slightly chilled.  Opinions vary – even at eG.  I went with room temp. 

 

Seasoning the machine is putting a small piece of dough through the rollers and the cutters to pick up any small bits of metal or dust that might be in there after manufacture.  The rollers worked reasonably well, but the cutters gave me some trouble.  The larger one got a little jammed up, but the thin cutter was impossible:

I’ve heard now from folks here that no one seems to use their cutters anyway.  They just do sheets and roll them up and cut with a knife (more anon re: that).  But I think that my dough was just too sticky.  It wouldn’t dis-attach from the cutters.  And this was what was left behind for me to clean up:

And because it could rust, you can’t use any water or cleansers.  I got them as clean as I could with a brush, a crochet hook, and banging the bastard on the counter. 

 

Once I got it “clean”, it was time to roll out my sheets to cut for cannelloni.  I realized fairly quickly that there was nowhere in the kitchen that would afford me the room to do this.  I remembered an old Alton Brown show where he rolls pasta sheets on an ironing board.  It was already set up in the living room, so I just grabbed a clean sheet to cover it, clamped the machine to the board and went to town.  I couldn’t seem to get the hang of rolling out the dough.  The crank fell out of the machine and onto my foot about 9 times.  The dough would bunch up on one end of the rollers and turn into accordion pleats at the end.  Sigh. 

 

I finally managed to get 14 sheets that were generally the same size.  I dusted them with semolina flour and separated the layers with plastic wrap, bunged them into the fridge and went to bed; exhausted, hungry and unsatiated. 

 

Yesterday (a day later than I meant to serve this), I got everything ready to assemble.  Tomato sauce in the baking dish:

 

Got out the pasta and started making my cannelloni.  I just knew that if I tried to boil a bunch at a time, I would just come to grief and everything would end up sailing through the kitchen window into the back yard.  So, I got a smallish pot of water boiling and did them one at a time for about 1 1/2 minutes.   I stuffed and rolled each one as the came out of the water.  It worked out fine.  By the time I had put one in the baking dish, the next one was ready to stuff.   

 

Meat filling on the bottom third of a sheet of dough:

 

Rolled up:

Not too terrible shabby.  That little cut is from my fingernail.  Baking pan filled with cannelloni:

It’s funny how much that looks like my trashy tamale dinner from the other night:

 😁

 

Covered with bechamel, dolloped with tomato sauce, dotted with butter, and sprinkled with Parm:

 

Back to the pasta for a minute.  When I put them on the baking sheet after rolling and cutting the night before, I sprinkled the bottom of the sheet with semolina and started stacking.  I did put plastic wrap between the pasta sheets on the pan, but not between the pan and the first layer.  Sigh.  So, my bottom layer was stuck.  I had plenty for my prepared pan but was aggravated at myself.  I managed to get them off the pan, but they were really stretched out and unusable for cannelloni.  I had the bright idea that I could turn them into fettuccine.  So, I did what I’d seen all the cooks do on TV and youtube: sprinkled them with semolina dough, folded up and cut.  Then I “fluffed” them.  Nothing happened.  I had little pasta clots just lying there, eternally stuck together.

 

Out of the oven, it looked just like the picture above, but the cheese and bechamel were a little toasty.  Dished up:

 

And it tasted…fragmented?  Everything tasted good.  I somehow, in all the stress of the pasta drama, missed my note from David saying that he used only 3/4 c. of the bechamel, which is MUCH less than the recipe makes.  There was just too much of it.  It is, of course, extremely rich and it detracted from the perfect tomato sauce.  It just caused the dish to be unbalanced.  The beef/spinach filling was as good as I remembered.  And the big deal?  The pasta?  Meh.  It was ok.  A little underdone in some places and a little mushy in others.  Overall and mostly it was fine.  Worth the effort?  Not a bit.  I’ll definitely make this again, but I’ll use the egg roll wrappers. 

 

Brilliant and delicious!  When I make this recipe I use extra bechamel and the filling in dishes like scrambled eggs or just tossed in spaghetti.  That looks so darn delicious I wish I had a bowl for breakfast.

[Kim Shook]

18 minutes ago, David Ross said:

Brilliant and delicious!  When I make this recipe I use extra bechamel and the filling in dishes like scrambled eggs or just tossed in spaghetti.  That looks so darn delicious I wish I had a bowl for breakfast.

Good ideas!  I was also thinking of Croque Monsieur.  

[chileheadmike]

One of the restaurants I worked for had a cannelloni. Filling was ground beef, Italian sausage, spinach and some romano cheese. Sauce was a basic marinara, no bechamel. The pasta was made from a thick crepe batter cooked in saute pans. Worked pretty well. It was one of our best sellers. 

[FeChef]

Read thread topic as Cannoli. Then got really confused about what i saw. But now i want to try frying up some cannoli shells out of egg roll wrappers and pipe in some of that filling.

[Kim Shook]

1 hour ago, chileheadmike said:

One of the restaurants I worked for had a cannelloni. Filling was ground beef, Italian sausage, spinach and some romano cheese. Sauce was a basic marinara, no bechamel. The pasta was made from a thick crepe batter cooked in saute pans. Worked pretty well. It was one of our best sellers. 

That is a great idea.  It reminds me of some individual quiches I made one time that had crepes as the crust.  It was an Alton Brown method.  VERY good and much easier than making your own pie crust.  

[Shelby]

Soooooooo, when is the next pasta making adventure 😁

 

I think it looks heavenly.

 

For what it's worth, I don't use the pasta cutter in my machine either.  Much easier to cut it by hand.  I call it "rustic".

 

Oh and also, Ronnie does not care for béchamel sauce at all.  I made lasagna once and spent like the whole day on it--which included the béchamel.  He begged me never to make it that way again lol.

[chromedome]

2 hours ago, chileheadmike said:

One of the restaurants I worked for had a cannelloni. Filling was ground beef, Italian sausage, spinach and some romano cheese. Sauce was a basic marinara, no bechamel. The pasta was made from a thick crepe batter cooked in saute pans. Worked pretty well. It was one of our best sellers. 

We had a similar dish at the restaurant where I worked when going to culinary school.

One of my GF's favorites (it's on tap for tonight's dinner, in fact) is the cheese-filled Ukrainian equivalent. We bake ours under a creamy sauce, rather than frying them. It's rather rich (as you'd imagine) but tasty. I've seen cheese-filled strudels done in much the same way, also.

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

Many years ago I had a recipe that used no-boil lasagna sheets for the pasta. Make the filling, make the sauce, hydrate the pasta sheets, roll up, cover with sauce and bake. Like egg roll wrappers but thicker, as I recall. The beauty part of the noodles is that they wait for you in the pantry until you're ready, and if you only want to serve one or two people you can quickly put together dinner. Unlike egg roll wrappers, which have a shelf life. I have some in the pantry, and I think I might try this again--if I can get some of the ingredients for the filling, which is problematic these days.

 

 

[rotuts]

@Nancy in Pátzcuaro 

 

Yes  Yes Yes 1

 

Ive done the same thing !

 

and after using Ronzoni

 

https://www.ronzoni.com/en-us/content/25981/Products.aspx

 

i later realized   any ' cook ' pasta would do

 

just soak in hot water until pliable 

 

you get to pay attention to the

 

Filling  , 

 

and of course  

 

too much   3 X Béchamel