I was so excited when I saw that my first challenge back with Daring Cooks, will be e homemade pasta. I was given a pasta machine as a gift a few years by my mom. I never used it but MrB has made delicious pasta. Not having our own kitchen to make pasta in means we don't have it packed out ready to go. When I realised that I HAD to make pasta I was really excited!!
Then I realised we are not just making pasta, we are making Cannelloni. Delicious but tricky, I thought. But a challenge is a challenge and off we go! I planned my chicken, butternut and feta cannelloni as a family dinner on a Saturday night. Plenty of time to make it, time to enjoy it, everyone can talk about how tasty it was and I would follow with some Italian influenced dessert. The day before my big cook-off day, out of town family arrived and the plan was changed.
The big pasta cook off day turned out to be a Sunday night. We had spent all day with friends and I rushed home to make my pasta. We were both so full from our lunch with friends we barely even tasted the pasta creation. Monday at work we both had a delicious cannelloni lunch. MMMMMMMMMM!!! Soooo good!! Will be making this again....soon! Thanks to Manu for hosting this challenge
Pasta
1 egg
170ml all purpose flour
Directions:
1. Put the flour and eggs in a food processor and mix. When the dough looks like crumbs, pour it onto the bench top sprinkled with a little flour. Knead well by hand until you obtain a smooth dough. Make it into a ball, wrap it in cling wrap and let it rest for 10-15 minutes.
2. Now you are ready to make your egg pasta. Cut out a piece of egg pasta dough and flatten it into a rectangular shape with your hands. Put a little flour on it and begin passing it though the pasta machine. Turn the dial to the widest setting (#1) and, starting with one of the shorter sides of the rectangle, feed it through the rollers. Now fold one side of the piece of dough into the middle, then fold the other side over that to form 3 layers. Starting with one of the narrower sides of the folded dough, feed the pasta through the machine, again at the widest setting. Repeat the folding and rolling technique on the widest setting for at least a couple of times.
3. Now you can start rolling it thinner, by turning the dial to the next narrowest setting (# 2). Roll the pasta through the machine without folding the dough between settings. Keep reducing the settings until #7 (it is the second last on my machine – about 1 mm thick). If the sheet of pasta gets too long, you can cut it in half with a knife. To make cannelloni, cut out rectangular pasta sheets (10x15 cm)
Put a large pot with salty water on the fire and bring to a boil. Cook the pasta sheets in it for 1 minute. Do this in batches (Remove them with a slotted spoon and let them cool.
Manu recommends putting the cooked cannelloni on a dish towel but I used a baking tray as no clean dish towels could be found.
I made a basic white sauce and a cheese sauce (bechamel sauce). I cooked and drained spinach and chopped up pieces of cooked chicken breast. Using a non stick spray I sprayed the bottom of the oven-proof dish and then spread some white sauce. I added the cheese sauce to the spinach and the chicken then seasoned well. This gave me a well binded cheesy mixture to use as my filling.
I put a spoonful of filling on a sheet of cannelloni and rolled it to form a big cigar shape. I placed my cannelloni tightly together in my oven proof dish. The remaining white sauce was poured over the cannellonis and cheese sprinkled on top.
Into the oven they went! I cooked the cannelloni in a pre-heated oven for 20minutes.
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