Pumpkin Cannelloni
A big hit at this year’s annual Stiffel Center benefit gala, this dish is best served as a first course. The key is to keep the Cannelloni light and small, about the size of a cigar. The sauce is somewhat unusual. It involves slow cooking whole fresh tomatoes with sage and a little olive oil until they start to break down; and, then adding a little heavy cream so that you have the "melting" tomato, little pools of heavy cream with little glistening highlights of residual olive oil.
Pumpkin Cannelloni
(Serves 6 as first course)
Ingredients:
12 precooked sheets of fresh pasta, cut into 4” X 2.5” rectangles.
4 cups (uncooked) pumpkin or other hard fall squash – peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2” sized cubes
Several cloves garlic – peeled and finely chopped
2 T. ginger – peeled and finely chopped
1 cup Ricotta – whole milk
1 Egg yolk
1/4 t. of fresh ground nutmeg
A bunch of Sage leaves
Toss the pumpkin with the garlic, ginger and olive oil and roast at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes until the pumpkin is very soft. Scrape along any garlic and ginger stuck to the pan. Pass pumpkin through a food mill or puree in food processor. Allow the pumpkin puree to cool.
Combine the pumpkin (just about two cups once cooked), ricotta, egg yolks, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Refrigerate until very cold. This will allow you to pipe the mixture on to the pasta to roll.
To prepare your pasta:
Trim uncooked fresh pasta sheets into 2 1/2” by 4” rectangles. Cook in boiling water until al dente. Remove from boiling water and hold in cold water taking care to prevent pasta sheets from sticking together. They will have grown slightly larger in cooking. Pat the pasta rectangles dry and lay out in single rectangles on parchment paper with six or nine rectangles per sheet. You can do this in layers, placing parchment paper between the layers, until all of the rectangles are laid out. This gets them ready to be stuffed.
Place the pumpkin-ricotta mixture into a pastry bag and pipe the mixture on to each rectangle. You should do this along the short side about 1 “ in from the end. The mixture should be piped into about 1/2” diameter tubes. Gently roll the rectangles around the filling to make a cigar shape. If you do not mind the trouble, it is nice to place a whole sage leaf under the end of the rolled pasta.
Generously grease an ovenproof pan and place the filled pasta in the pan taking care to leave a little room between each “cigar” so that you may later lift them out to place on the sauce.
To make the Melted tomato and cream sauce
Ingredients:
12- 15 Plum tomatoes
1/2 cup or so of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Several cloves minced Garlic
2 T. minced Ginger
A few fresh sage leaves
Juice from 1 lime
2 cups heavy cream
Salt and pepper to taste
To make the tomatoes and cream:
Your goal here is first to slow cook the seasoned tomatoes until they start to break down and concentrate their flavor and then add cream so that the tomatoes melt into the cream as it reduces. The ideal is if the tomatoes, cream and olive oil all remain a little separate rather than the cream homogenizing into the tomatoes. Don't worry too much about this. It will all taste great.
Plum tomatoes – peeled, cut in half across the length and seeded. Toss the tomatoes in the garlic, ginger and olive oil. Place cut side down on top of a sage leaf in a roasting pan lightly greased with olive oil. Roast in an oven at 325 degrees for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until the tomatoes break apart when pressed gently. Add the heavy cream and gently press some of the tomatoes to break some up, while leaving others alone. This will result in a variation in texture. Return to a 375-degree oven until the heavy cream starts to thicken. Add the lime juice and gently shake the pan. The lime juice cuts some of the richness and adds another flavor dimension. You are not really looking to incorporate all of the heavy cream into the sauce – you want some pools of whitish cream, some “melting tomatoes” and some pools of residual olive oil.
To assemble and serve:
Top the hot cannelloni with the grated Parmigiano Reggiano and either place under the broiler or brown top with a butane torch.
Place a pool of the tomato-cream mixture onto the plate and place two cannelloni on top. Garnish with chopped parsley. Optional garnish: Deep-fried sage leaves.
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Note on Parmigiano Reggiano:
So much about good cooking is in shopping for great ingrediants. There is no better grating cheese than Regggiano. Parmigiano Reggiano is hard grana (Italian grating) cheese made from cow’s milk. True Parmigiano Reggiano comes from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. As you might expect from the name, this region is also renowned for Parma ham. Principle cities in the area include Parma and Bologna. Just to the east is Venice. The cheese has a golden yellow interior, hard oily rind, and rich sharp flavor. It is aged for 2-3 years. It has a distinct and pungent flavor that compliments this dish particularly well as a counterpoint to the sweetness of the pumpkin. It is available in fine cheese shops and Fresh Fields - even my local Genuardi's carries it. By it whole and grate it as you need it. It costs about $11 per pound and is worth every penny. Be careful not to break off a piece and eat it as it can be very addictive and before you know it you have no cheese left for grating.
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